I have never been particularly good at math. That is a polite way of saying that for most of my life I have regarded numbers with a mixture of resignation and strategic avoidance. Sure, math is hard. But some years ago, I began to suspect that math is not just hard. It can be dangerous. The way we use numbers — the things we do to people, and with people, when we reduce them to numbers — can have serious moral consequences. A number can be a tool of understanding. It can also be a tool of...

Today on the Jewish calendar is an observance known as Ta'anit Esther  — a daylong fast that commemorates the one the biblical Queen Esther calls the Jews of Persia to observe before she confronts her husband, the king, unsummoned, which in her world could mean death. In Jewish tradition, a fast is not primarily about hunger. It is about wakefulness — about refusing to move through a moment that demands our full attention as though it were ordinary. And this is a moment that demands our full...

Our TBE Civil Rights Journey group meeting with Dr. Lynda Blackmon Lowery (of blessed memory) in November 2025. Toward the end of last week’s Torah portion, Moses goes to Pharaoh with God’s demand — shalach et ami , let My people go — and Pharaoh responds not with negotiation, not even with a simple refusal, but by tightening the screws. He increases the Israelites’ labor. He forces them to gather their own straw, make their own bricks, and meet the same quotas in shorter amounts of time. He...