A tithe is a giving rate, generally calculated as a percentage of income. Studies show that giving rates tend to shrink as incomes increase. That fact should concern anyone who is preparing to say "Let all who are hungry come and eat."

It's time to turn the tithe! Registration is now open for Generous Justice: From Spare Change to Social Change. It's the first-ever Jewish leadership training program for "just giving" — simple, regular, and fair. We're joining forces and resources to create a culture of greater fairness and fulfillment for all.

The Generous Justice training will be part of the 2015 National Havurah Committee (NHC) Summer Institute, August 3-9 in Rindge, New Hampshire. The overall theme of the Institute is "The Poor of Your People Shall Eat," exploring the relationship between the sabbatical cycle and social justice.

We hope you'll join WAYS OF PEACE and the NHC for this transformative program. Please click here for more information about how you can participate, and please share this message with anyone else who may be interested.

With thanks and many blessings for the Season of Liberation and beyond,

Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips 
WAYS OF PEACE Community Resources

Tablet Magazine 1/23/15

“Bury him a burial,” commands the Biblical passage at the center of our Jewish funeral imperatives — asserting that even the corpse of an executed criminal is worthy of respect. By traditional extension, all our Jewish dead are given the honor of levayah, which literally means “accompanying” to the grave.  Full levayah includes active participation in burial, which carries two protections against desecration: one of the human body (adam), the other of the earth (adamah). (...)

When we accept the loving, wrenching imperative of returning bodies to the earth — adam to adamah — our own bodies help us move from sorrow to consolation. There are vital lessons to be found at the end of a shovel. READ MORE

True stories of accompanying and return: an elderly family matriarch, a middle-aged rock star, my own father, a gravedigger's father, and a young man who lost his battle with drug addiction — but not the love of his survivors