Rabbi Michael Dolgin, our Genesis commentator for Ten Minutes of Torah, is passionate about community engagement, interfaith and intercultural understanding, and tikkun olam. We caught up with him on how his Torah commentaries speak to some of the critical issues of our time.

Friday’s sunset could be no different than Thursday’s, a time marker notching off another day or another week, but Shabbat requires us to mark a more substantial difference,  Regularity is key to keep track of our lives between other Jewish times and when days blur into each other.

Even as structure and routine begin to crumble, ritual observances don’t stop for the virus. As did many generations of Jews before us, we must adapt ritual to this unprecedented way of life, and Shabbat services, a mainstay for nursing home residents, necessitated creative adaptation.

This week, I tell a friend I’d love to chat but actually I have to run Yom Kippur services are starting soon and I’ve got to repent for my sins before the gates are closed. She laughs. “Well, you’re gay, so you’ve definitely got a lot of repenting to do.”

Six decades have not diminished my appreciation of the rabbinic mentors who symbolically escorted me to rabbinical school and upon whose shoulders I stand.

And at this moment, in the midst of the pandemic, we are witnessing a time of reckoning for the racial divide that has torn our society apart for so long. What does it mean to bring a baby into a world in desperate need of r’fuah sh’leimah, the full healing of body, heart, and soul?

Now, as restrictions begin to lift, we are faced once again with how to conduct our worship in meaningful ways. Just because our synagogues can be open does not necessarily mean that they should be.

This Shabbat, recite these 15 words of this ancient and powerful b’racha. Take a knee to show your vulnerability. Take a knee in protest and offer this blessing with the hopes of truly bringing a sense of peace and wholeness at a time when it is so deeply needed.

As fulfilling as it was to engage in Shavuot programs, a lot weighs on me. With COVID-19 continuing to ravage Black communities and racist violence all over the news, I almost feel like it’s Yom Kippur instead – the time when Jews are supposed to be most aware of their own mortality.