Category Archives: Covenants

“Hold Me Closer”: Intimacy in Distance

Alissa Thomas
May 29, 2013

        Our covenantal relationship with God is characterized by a love laden with longing.         The brit, covenant, fundamentally weds God and Israel on the condition of Israel’s faith and adherence to the law and God’s fulfillment of Israel’s needs. But the brit also highlights the inherent distance between More »

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The Big Promise

May 27, 2013

A covenant is like a really big promise, an unbreakable vow, but what happens when we don’t keep our word? We can fracture a relationship, lose a job, make someone cry, and a variety of other outcomes, but not much really happens in the grand scheme so it seems. But what would happen if a More »

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Pro-Choice Covenant

Emily Goldberg
May 22, 2013

It does not surprise me that there are thousands of Jews in support of Planned Parenthood. Despite all conflicting opinions regarding abortions, conceptions, and safe sex, it does not faze me that nearly 93% of American Jews support a woman’s right to make decisions over her own body. It is simply in our nature. The More »

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A Covenant of Parenthood

Rachel Petroff Kessler
May 17, 2013

My sweet little girl took her sweet time coming into this world. As my due date approached and passed, my husband and I eagerly anticipated her arrival and worked to prepare our home and our hearts for the arrival of our baby. Along with building the crib, washing the newborn clothes, and preparing freezer meals, More »

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Circumcision and the 7 Year Old

Shawn Shafner
May 13, 2013

How do you teach a 1st grade class about the brit of circumcision? The very idea fills one with panic. There are penises involved, and they go from being one way to being another. Do you show diagrams, or snip the tip off a banana? And the snipping itself. How does one engage children on More »

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On Covenant and Circumcision

Rabbi Julie Pelc Adler
May 12, 2013

I think a lot about the idea (and reality!) of covenant in my work as the Director of the Berit Mila Program of Reform Judaism. Our program educates Jewish physicians and nurse midwives already proficient in performing infant circumcision about the specifically Jewish ritual of brit milah. Many of these medical practitioners become mohalim in More »

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