The Voice of a Prophet and the Heart of a Spiritual Seeker

As a young rabbi, I spent many hours working with conversion students. Together, we explored the practices of Shabbat and prayer, and these often opened rich conversations about meaning and connection. But when we reached the subject of kashrut—the laws of keeping kosher—a barrier would sometimes arise. For many, its purpose felt opaque, its restrictions burdensome. They wrestled with what it might mean to abstain from beloved family dishes at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I could feel their ambivalence, their sense of loss for something that did not yet offer immediate spiritual insight or power.

In those moments, I would often turn to an article by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on eco-kashrut. In it, he reimagined kashrut—what is “fit” to be eaten—as a framework not only for spiritual discipline but for ecological awareness. He urged us to see our choices about food and consumption through the lens of sacred responsibility: to consider sustainability, recycling, and the impact of eating local and organic foods as part of a larger Jewish ethic. He also believed a holistic kashrut was one that was concerned for workers, their safety and fair work conditions. In doing so, he transformed kashrut into a living, breathing spiritual practice—one that invited students to engage with renewed curiosity and conviction.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow died this week at age 92. He held a Ph.D. in American history and began his career in the realms of nuclear disarmament and civil rights at the Peace Research Institute. His early claim to fame among Jewish progressives came in 1969, when he authored the Freedom Seder Haggadah and led a Freedom Seder in the basement of a Washington, D.C. church on the first anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. More than 800 people attended.

Over his long and remarkable life, Reb Arthur—as he was affectionately known—was an author, activist, and founder of Jews for Urban Justice and the Shalom Center. At age 62, he was ordained as a rabbi by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, alongside our own Dr. Judith Plaskow and others.

There are many places to read about his life and work, but I’ve been reflecting on how he impacted my own Jewish journey, the life of our BJ community, and the broader Jewish world. Reb Arthur was a central figure at the Jewish Renewal retreats that Roly, Marcelo, and I attended in the late 1990s. He carried the voice of a prophet and the heart of a spiritual seeker. We were privileged to host him as a scholar-in-residence at BJ and to celebrate a Freedom Seder under his guidance.

It’s not only that his books line our shelves—my favorite being Godwrestling—or that his teachings influenced our community’s consciousness. It’s that he lived his Torah with his whole being. Arrested more than twenty times, including on his 80th birthday, Reb Arthur put his body on the line for the Jewish values of freedom, justice, dignity, and peace. He was not a mainstream rabbi—his long white beard, colorful kippah and tallit, and radical spirituality made him unmistakable—but from the margins of institutional Jewish life, he helped redefine the Judaism we live today.

Reb Arthur concluded the article I shared with my students with these words:

We can light a blaze to consume the earth. Or we can make a holy altar of our lives, to light up the spark of God in every human and in every species.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow made his life a holy altar. His legacy reminds me—and I hope all of us—that we are shaped by those who push boundaries and challenge our comfort, who expand our sense of what is possible and sacred. In such a polarized world that too easily cancels rather than invites in, that too often sets ablaze what it cannot understand, we need the courage to build altars of holiness instead.

Reb Arthur was the kind of teacher and rabbi who taught the Jewish world to stretch. May his memory be for a blessing.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Felicia Sol