Choose Mercy Before Vengeance Chooses Us

Watch the sermon that Reverend Senator Warnock delivered before this conversation here. Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation with Raphael Warnock, Baptist pastor and senator from Georgia, discussing his book The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America. Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination.

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination.

In this week’s Torah reading we meet a character who is mentioned just once and then vanishes from the story. Who is he, and what does he teach us? And what does all of that have to do with being 13?

Many thanks for joining us at Pride Shabbat with Dr. Sara Glass and Lani Santo, CEO of Footsteps, co-sponsored with JQ. The discussion centered around LGBTQ+ identity, chosen family, and building a self-determined life after leaving ultra-Orthodoxy. For those of you interested in learning more on the challenges and triumphs of those choosing to forge their own path beyond ultra-Orthodoxy, we hope you’ll consider reading Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Dr. Sara Glass. At Footsteps, Pride is an attitude we embrace all year, providing safe spaces and critical services for our LGBTQ+ members and all of our members, as they pursue self-determined lives.