The Dust and the Stars

Rabbi Morris Panitz offers a prayer for our country in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo & Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, two men who lost their lives this week at the hands of ICE officers.

What happens when the man who once found refuge forgets the power of mercy? Drawing together Moses’ flight to Midian, the cities of refuge, and one of the Torah’s most difficult passages, we discover an enduring challenge to break the cycle of vengeance before it breaks us.

Join Donniel Hartman and Rabbi Sharon Brous at the Shalom Hartman Institute for a profoundly honest and challenging conversation on the moral responsibility of Jewish leadership today. Together, they explore the complexities of holding onto faith and hope in a world facing overlapping crises—from climate change and the rise of AI to political extremism and the disturbing normalization of violence and antisemitism. Drawing on the teachings of the prophet Micah, Brous and Hartman share what keeps them up at night and where they find reasons to be optimistic. They delve into the crucial difference between winning the war in the Middle East vs. maintaining a moral standing on the global stage, the necessity of truthtelling within the Jewish community, and the controversial debate over the utility of the label “Zionist” in contemporary political discourse. This discussion is an essential watch for anyone grappling with identity, community, and the ongoing struggle to build a just and loving world in times of deep uncertainty. Topics Covered: The “polycrisis” of our time: Climate change, AI, and violent extremism. The tension between internal truthtelling and external public relations. What it means to drop a “sea anchor” when facing waves of fear and anti-Semitism. Why the words we use matter, and the growing debate over the term “Zionism”.

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.