(Image above with details below and image of me.) Signs and Wonders: Sign Language and Deafness in the Eyes of the Rabbis Monday, February 10, 7:30 - 8:45 PM Lehrhaus 425 Washington Street Somerville, MA Taught by Rabbi Jonah Rank More info and tickets at

Hello Greater Boston! Would you like to study together Judaism's evolving understanding of Deafness and sign languages? Come join me at Somerville's Lehrhaus on February 10 at 7:30 PM for "Signs and Wonders: Sign Language and Deafness in the Eyes of the Rabbis."

Tonight the Chicagoland Jewish community and friends, through prayer and study, can pay proper tribute to the lives of trans people we have lost and pave a better path forward trans people today and tomorrow.

Please RSVP and join us tonight for Zokherim: We Remember: Trans Day of Remembrance Communal Gathering. https://t.co/EZmIDSQAsS

Now is the time to embrace, and now is the time to build a society absent of discrimination and filled instead with love. Psalm 89:3 instructs us: olam chesed yibbaneh (עולם חסד יבנה, a world of love is to be built).

Today is Trans Day of Remembrance. In the heaviness of these memories of lives lost one way or another to transphobia, we have a mandate to honor trans people who came before us whom society failed to embrace.

At Hebrew Seminary, we teach a Torah of radical inclusion, emphasizing kevod habberiyyot (כבוד הבריות, the dignity of all humans), for we have all been created betzelem elohim (בצלם אלהים, in the image of God).

At Hebrew Seminary, some 33% of our student population identifies as trans.

At Hebrew Seminary, our physical site has multiple gender-neutral bathrooms.

In a fraught time when the rights of trans Americans keep coming under attack, I feel grateful to work at Hebrew Seminary:

No matter what cables I use and foot pedal I use, my @RolandGlobal V-Drums Percussion Sound Module TD-3 does not acknowledge the hi-hat trigger's closing or opening of the hi-hat. Do I need a new sound module? I tried Factory Reset, but that proved not successful.

Here's why:

Why is the rabbinical school I serve hosting a Trans Day of Remembrance event?

No single group or leader can improve a country for us. We must be kind neighbors to all.

If your energy is limited today, please know that you are loved, and you are not alone. Let us remember the holiness that still resides among us, and let us share our kedushah, our sanctity, generously in the days ahead.

We are here to bring equilibrium to a planet that has been shaken. Through sacred, charitable, ethical, enlightening, and just actions, we can perform tikkun olam, the reparation of a broken universe.

As such, the Jerusalem Talmud warned Jews against trusting any leader who spurns the government and acts alone (Sanhedrin 1:1).

Our task is to protect this earth (Genesis 2:15); after all, God's holiness permeates the universe (Tikkuney Zohar 91b). I believe that the collective good of humanity is a manifestation of God's kindness (Mordecai Kaplan, Judaism as a Civilization, p. 477).

I affirm the words of Psalm 89:3: olam chesed yibbaneh (עולם חסד יבנה, "a world of lovingkindness is to be built"). I believe in a God whose compassion we emulate (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 14a), for we are all created in the Divine image (Genesis 1:26).

Why does this matter to me? This is an hour of cognitive dissonance. For those of us in the United States, the representation of the 47th president of the United States will rarely if ever reflect what I preach as a rabbi.