Rabbi Steven Abraham

What the Israelites’ Grumbling Teaches Us About Listening to Dissent and Channeling Communal Frustrations Productively The journey of the Israelites through the wilderness, as described in Parashat Beha’alotcha (Numbers 8:1–12:16), is one of the most profound narratives in Torah that exposes the complexities of communal life, leadership, and spiritual growth. Among the many themes woven into the text, the Israelites’ persistent complaints stand out, often interpreted simply as ingratitude or … [Read more...]

The headline is unsettling: in its new Global Religious Landscape report, the Pew Research Center says the United States is home to 5.7 million Jews by religion—1.8 million fewer than the 7.5 million Jews of “religion, culture, or family background” tallied in Pew’s 2020 portrait of American Jewry. At first blush it looks like demographic free-fall. In truth it is an accounting pivot, not a population collapse. To compare religious communities across 201 countries, Pew counted only those … [Read more...]

For centuries, tattoos have occupied a complicated and uneasy space in Judaism. Traditionally considered taboo, they’ve stirred debate, discomfort, and fear. The old myth that Jews with tattoos cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery has long been debunked, but its shadow still lingers in the communal imagination—whispered at shiva, repeated at summer camps, and passed from generation to generation like spiritual folklore. As a rabbi, I’ve spent years guiding others through their own religious … [Read more...]

Parashat Beha’alotcha (Numbers 11:4–6) “We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free—the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” (Numbers 11:5) One of the most perplexing and emotionally charged moments in the Torah unfolds in Parashat Beha’alotcha. The Israelites, sustained daily by a miracle—manna from Heaven—suddenly cry out, not in gratitude, but in complaint. They long, with startling intensity, for Egypt: “We remember the fish we ate there—for free!” It … [Read more...]

The Conservative movement was born from a paradox. It sought to conserve Jewish tradition while acknowledging that history moves forward. It stood between Orthodoxy and Reform, not as a compromise, but as a principled commitment: halakhah could be binding and evolving. Its roots trace back to the 19th century, when European Jewry faced the intellectual and social upheavals of modernity. The Reform movement issued the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, rejecting halakhah as binding and … [Read more...]

The first recorded minyan in Jewish history didn’t happen in a synagogue. It happened in Egypt. When Pharaoh died, the Torah tells us, “the Israelites groaned under the bondage and cried out” (Exodus 2:23). Their collective cry rose up—and God listened. The Talmud (Berakhot 6a) teaches that wherever ten Jews gather to pray, the Divine Presence dwells among them. This is not a legal technicality—it is theology. Ten voices form a single plea. Ten souls transform private pain into public sacred … [Read more...]

“Rabbi, I’m not sure I believe in God… but I still feel very Jewish.” I’ve heard this line more times than I can count. Sometimes it’s whispered with a tinge of embarrassment. Other times, it’s spoken defiantly, even proudly. But beneath it, there is often an honest, aching confusion. How can one claim Jewish identity—and even Jewish integrity—when the core theological claim of Judaism seems elusive, rejected, or simply irrelevant? Can you still be a good Jew if you don’t believe in God? For … [Read more...]

There is a fracture in the Jewish moral imagination—an ever-widening rift between two sacred imperatives: the universal ethics of the prophets and the particular obligations of Jewish peoplehood. One speaks in the language of justice, empathy, and solidarity with the vulnerable. The other insists on memory, power, and survival. One is rooted in the words of Isaiah and Amos. The other rises from the ashes of Auschwitz and the founding of the State of Israel. At the heart of this tension stand two … [Read more...]

Parshat Nasso is the longest parsha in the Torah. A parsha of tribal accounting, sacred duties, blessings, and boundaries. At first glance, it reads like a bureaucratic scroll—assigning labor, listing gifts, cataloging the holy. But as is often the case in Torah, holiness hides in the details. Two phrases stand out. And this week, they cry out with relevance: The first is at the beginning of the parsha: Se’u et rosh—“Lift up the head.” It’s the Torah’s language for taking a census. But … [Read more...]

There is a silence spreading through American Jewish life, and it is loudest from the bimah. In a time of moral confusion, rising antisemitism, ideological extremism, and open threats to Jewish sovereignty, too many rabbis have chosen comfort over confrontation, nuance over clarity, and institutional safety over prophetic responsibility. The result is a spiritual leadership crisis—and a Jewish public increasingly unable to distinguish between moral complexity and moral collapse. In the wake … [Read more...]