Rabbi Hilly Haber

Rabbi Hilly Haber head shot

Rabbi Hilly Haber serves as the Director of Social Justice Organizing and Education at Central Synagogue in New York City. With the Central community, Rabbi Haber works with people coming home from jail and prison and advocates for criminal justice reform in New York. Rabbi Haber has also taught on Rikers Island, served as a chaplain in other jail and prison settings in the New York area, and is a current doctoral student at Union Theological Seminary in the field of Social Ethics.

Freedom - Chains That Transform Into Birds
P'kudei

Parshat P'kudei – A Blueprint for Our Vision of Liberation

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Hilly Haber
The Mishkan, God's dwelling place in the wilderness, is at the center of Israel's liberative process. In Parshat P'kudei, the Israelites finished construction of the Mishkan. As the book of Exodus closes, we read, "Thus was finished all the work of the Mishkan of the Tent of Meeting; and the children of Israel did according to all that the Adonai commanded Moses, so they did." (Exodus 39:32) And again, 10 verses later: "Just as Adonai had commanded Moses, so the Israelites had done all the work." (Ex.39:42)
Vayak'heil

Parshat Vayak'heil: Sustaining and Generating Life in Wilderness

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Hilly Haber
"Mattie stood in the doorway, and an involuntary shudder went through her when she saw Ciel's eyes. Dear God, she thought, she's dying, and right in front of our faces. 'Merciful Father, no!' she bellowed. There was no prayer, no bended knee or sackcloth supplication in those words, but a
Ki Tisa

Parashat Ki Tisa: Waking Up to Freedom

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Hilly Haber
In Parshat Ki Tisa, we learn that even though the Israelites have left Egypt, they carry with them the shape of a dictator long gone. While Moses speaks with God on Mount Sinai, recording the laws by which this new nation will live, the Israelites ask Aaron to make them a new deity, who according to midrash, was "like those of the Egyptians" (Pirke de-rabbi Eliezer, 45).
T'tzaveh

Parshat T'tzaveh: A Theology of Sacred Ecosystems and Interconnection

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Hilly Haber
Brazilian nun and ecofeminist Ivone Gebara writes from the frontlines of climate and economic disaster. Attuned to the plurality of pains crying out locally and echoing across the globe, Gebara weaves together a theology of ecosystem and interconnection, one that recognizes the vast webs of relationship binding all life in shared fate. Gebara offers a vision for human and ecological flourishing that starts with an honest account of communal and environmental degradation.
T'rumah

Building with God in the Wilderness: A Theology of Just and Loving Communities

D'Var Torah By: Rabbi Hilly Haber
In a path-breaking1993 work entitled Sisters in the Wilderness: the Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, Delores Williams sets forth a theology of the wilderness centered in the experiences of African American women. Building from the particular and speaking with universal resonance, Williams identifies a wilderness ethic grounded in the values of: survival, relationship and resilience. For Williams, the wilderness is a place of both struggle and possibility - a place in which Hagar, a slave cast out of her home, is rescued by God so that she can ultimately mother her own nation into being.