Oct 21, 2026
The Courage to Keep Listening: a reflection on Billy Planer's "Conversations that Matter"
The Courage to Keep Listening
There is a particular loneliness in being certain that no one is listening. We can fill our days with words, publish our convictions, gather affirmations, and still feel that we have reached no one beyond those who already agree. Meanwhile, the distance between us grows.
My friend Billy Planer has spent decades walking into that distance. His book, "Conversations That Matter," invites us to join him.
Drawing on his work leading Etgar 36 journeys through American history and contemporary life, Billy introduces us to people whose stories complicate the categories we carry. His educational method asks participants to encounter human beings, listen to how their convictions developed, and notice what happens within themselves when someone refuses to fit a familiar outline.
That matters so very much. We often imagine listening as something we offer another person. Billy reminds us how much it requires of the listener. Can I recognize the moment when curiosity gives way to preparing my rebuttal? Can I ask a question whose answer I have not already decided? Can I tolerate the discomfort of discovering that someone I disagree with has something to teach me?
These are deeply spiritual questions. They concern the habits through which we become human together.
As a rabbi, I hear in Billy’s work an echo of the Jewish insistence that every person bears God's Image. That teaching becomes demanding precisely when someone’s words anger us. Recognizing another person’s humanity can require tremendous discipline when the stakes of a disagreement are real and our own wounds are close to the surface.
I also appreciate that Billy makes room for boundaries. Conversation requires willingness. Safety matters. Sometimes stepping away is wise. The invitation to listen carries weight because it leaves room for judgment about when an encounter is possible.
His practical guidance gives that invitation substance: speak from your own experience, ask sincere questions, pay attention to your posture and tone, allow mistakes, and release the need to win. Anyone who has attempted these things during a painful disagreement knows how much practice they require. Even taking a breath before answering can become an act of moral courage.
I found myself especially moved by the role of story in his approach. An argument can become abstract very quickly. A story asks us to picture a life. It gives a belief a history, a geography, a family, a wound. We may remain unconvinced. Yet we have encountered someone whose existence exceeds the position we oppose.
For those of us committed to public leadership, this is a necessary challenge. Our words shape the rooms others must inhabit. We bear responsibility for what we defend, how we speak, and whether people leave our presence more capable of encountering one another. Passion and humility belong together. So do conviction and curiosity.
Billy’s book leaves me thinking about the world we build through ordinary exchanges: the question asked without a trap inside it, the moment of restraint, the unexpected admission, the willingness to remain present. These gestures can prepare people for the sustained work that change demands.
On December 6, I will have the pleasure of joining Billy for a public conversation in Westchester about Conversations That Matter. I am grateful to call him my friend and eager to explore these questions together. You can find event information at https://billyplaner.com/events/. You can purchase your own copy of the book here: https://a.co/d/0cLbC37Z
I hope you will join us. Billy has given us a generous invitation to practice something our communities urgently need: the courage to listen closely enough that another person becomes more fully visible. We can begin with the next conversation, carrying our convictions, making room for surprise, and remembering that the person before us has a story.
Oct 16, 2026
What Good is an Ark When We Leave the Children Outside? For Bend, Oregon During Parashat Noach
What Good is an Ark When We Leave the Children Outside?
For Bend, Oregon During Parashat Noach
For Bend, Oregon During Parashat Noach
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
I woke to rain this morning. During the week of Parashat Noach, rain asks us to listen. But the flood demanding our attention is one we have made.
At Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, three children, ages five, eight, and eleven, and a teacher were murdered. Children who should have come home. A teacher who should have returned to a life. Families whose worlds have been shattered.
How can we read the story of the flood and imagine it is only a story? Torah introduces Noah as righteous “in his generation.” What does righteousness require in ours? Noah sheltered his family while the world drowned. Can we call ourselves righteous if we protect our own children while accepting that someone else’s classroom might become a killing field?
Our ark must provide safety for every child and every teacher. Unlike the biblical flood, this devastation is sustained by human choices: easy access to deadly weapons, political cowardice, and a culture that confuses reverence for guns with freedom. We cannot surrender to its recurrence.
We must demand laws that protect life - and leaders willing to enact them.
After the flood, God places a rainbow in the sky and promises never again to destroy the world this way. As Rabbi Tali Adler teaches, this means there will be no reboot. This is the world entrusted to us. These are the children we are blessed to love. There is no replacement for any one of them.
Later in the portion, humanity builds the Tower of Babel. But they build a tower in a valley. I wonder whether we, too, keep constructing shallow assurances where the waters will still rise.
Prayers offered without responsibility cannot provide the shelter our children deserve. Prayer must move our hands. Grief must move our feet. Love must shape our laws.
May the memories of those murdered in Bend be blessings.
May their families know tenderness and companionship. May the wounded find healing.
And may we stop asking American children to practice surviving what American adults refuse to prevent.
The rainbow is a covenant. Our answer must be the world we build beneath it, together, beginning now.
Oct 15, 2026
Oct 13, 2026
Oct 7, 2026
A Prayer for October 7, Three Years Later
A Prayer for October 7, Three Years Later
Rabbi Menachem CreditorHealer of Shattered Souls,
we ask that You notice us
and all those who have promised
to bear testimony
to unspeakable horrors.
The indelible marks with which
these images and sounds
have scarred us to our cores
are permanent.
We will never
unsee nor unhear
any of what we saw, felt, experienced.
We accept this terrible imperative.
We bear witness
to honor the dead
Women
Men
Boys
Girls
Grandmothers
Grandfathers
Whole families
Babies
whose bodies were violated
whose very humanity was denied.
We affirm,
through this sacred witnessing,
that they were in fact
human beings,
created in Your Image,
worthy of infinite dignity.
We affirm,
through the three years
since That Day,
the weight of it all
upon Survivors
upon bereft families
upon kibbutzim and towns
upon Medinat Yisrael and Am Yisrael
upon us all.
Yes, we have proven our capacities
for healing
for rebuilding
for loving.
But today we call out
against the terrible reality that tested us in the first place.
God,
Who has Witnessed
all of this for all time,
we beg You send Divine Warmth
to reanimate us
when our eyes
are full of this darkness,
to somehow reinflate our souls
when breathing feels labored, or even wrong.
Remind us to fight for joy,
for that is what the souls
we remember today deserved,
what those who were trapped underground
we tenderly hold today always deserved,
what the Jewish People deserves,
what every human being deserves.
May the memories of our martyrs be forever blessed.
May Am Yisrael, the Jewish People,
heal and rebuild and find heart once again.
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