Bound and Unbound

After a life of heartache, two estranged brothers affirmed each other’s humanity, and rediscovered their own. We, too, can make that choice. Let us push back on the encroaching darkness as a force for good—a light force—that counters the cruelty, racism, and violence poisoning our culture with compassion, tender presence, and forgiveness. This is what solidarity looks like.

Loving your neighbor, who is like you, whose identity you share, is not enough.  You must stretch the boundaries of love to wrap into its embrace the stranger, the people in our society who are furthest away from power.  To counter the frenzy of rhetoric and the aspirations of policy that demonize these human beings, we need to love them fiercely.  We need to love them fully.

One day our dreams will be realized. Just not today. And not tomorrow. And maybe not for many years. But just as hope doesn’t die, dreams don’t die.

How optimizing this skill can change your life – and the world. Rabbi Sharon Brous has some extremely practical tips for how to improve what psychologists call your social health. She is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR , a Jewish community in LA. Her new book, a bestseller, is called The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World