JTS Torah Commentary

JTS MFA in Writing: The Power of Storytelling 

Mar 31, 2025

Acclaimed Israeli author Etgar Keret, the director of the JTS MFA in Writing, shared his passion for storytelling in this session of our series, “What’s Next: New Ways of Engaging with Jewish Text” He spoke with Lisa Springer, Dean of the Division of Lifelong and Professional Studies (DLPS) and Associate Provost for Continuing and Digital Learning.

Who Shall Cross: A Talmudic Reimagining of the Passover Narrative

Mar 24, 2025 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Pesah

In preparation for your seder, Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, Director of the Block / Kolker Center for Spiritual Arts, led a thought-provoking session, exploring a Talmudic story that reflects key themes of Passover, raising profound questions about free will, obligation, and inclusion. How do we determine our purpose? Who are our fellow travelers, and what do we owe them? This discussion offers new insights to bring to your Passover table.

From Online Auction to JTS Special Collections: How Two Historic Bibles Were Reunited in the JTS Library 

Mar 17, 2025 By David Zev Moster | Public Event video | Video Lecture

This summer, for his 40th birthday, David Moster purchased a rare set of books from the 1800s. The chain of events that followed led to the JTS Library temporarily welcoming a rare and valuable 13th Century Tanakh manuscript into its collection. In this session, you learn about the fascinating backstory of this manuscript and the thrilling story of its reunification. We explore how the study of manuscripts and the scribes who created them can help you think about your own translation and interpretation of the Tanakh.

The Masks of Doubt: Exploring Purim, Uncertainty, and the Hidden Divine

Mar 10, 2025 By Rabbi David Ingber | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Purim

Purim is a celebration of uncertainty—a holiday that invites us to embrace the hidden, the paradoxical, and the unknown. Join Romemu’s Rabbi David Ingber for a deep dive into the mystical themes of Purim, where doubt becomes a gateway to faith and masks reveal more profound truths. Together, we explore how the story of Purim reflects the concealment of the Divine, the role of chance and chaos in our lives, and the profound spiritual lessons that arise when we step into the space of not knowing. Discover how Purim challenges us to find meaning and connection amid mystery.

“Youth Shall See Visions”: Engaging the Next Generation of JTS Learners and Doers

Mar 3, 2025

In this past year, JTS launched two national fellowship programs for teens: Ruchot (in partnership with the Rabbinical Assembly, Adas Israel Congregation, USY, USCJ, and Ramah), which engages them in community organizing and social action, and the Emerging Leaders Fellowship, a student-led research program that introduces high school students to academic Jewish Studies. Both programs are inviting young Jews to establish their own connections to Jewish life and tradition. 

JTS Rabbinic Convocation 2025

Mar 3, 2025

JTS bestowed honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees at a convocation ceremony recognizing rabbis for their achievements over many years of distinguished service.

What’s Next? New Ways of Engaging with Jewish Sources

Feb 3, 2025

JTS is well-known as a hub of innovative scholarship and a center of academic Jewish Studies. Recently JTS has launched programs in Biblical Hebrew, Pastoral Care, and Teen Learning to name a few that offer accessible entryways into the Jewish textual tradition. Explore how JTS is bringing together new modes of learning with classical sources to meet the needs of today’s world. Sessions will give participants a taste of the ideas and teaching that are central to these programs.

Digital Revelations: Jewish Text in the 21st Century  

Feb 3, 2025 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

At key moments in our history, revolutions in information technologies have affected the way we study Torah and even the way we define it. Today we are going through such a revolution with very profound consequences. What are the effects of the current revolution and how is affecting our Torah—in the classroom, in The JTS Library, and beyond? 

The John Leopold and Martha Dellheim Senior Recital 2025

Jan 27, 2025

Graduating Cantorial School seniors Roseanne Benjamin, Rachel Black, and Justin Zvi Pellis, performed at an exciting evening of music and spirit, sharing their talents and their vision for the 21st-century cantorate. The recital featured a wide range of Jewish music in Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as hazzanut, musical theatre, and Israeli folk and art songs. Choral works and compositions written and composed by our graduates were also be performed. The soloists, along with guest artists, were be accompanied by pianist Joyce Rosenzweig, JTS adjunct instructor, and the combined choir of the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, conducted by Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn.

What Makes Groups Reject Their Own?

Dec 20, 2024 By Rabbi Yael Shmilovitz | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Vayeshev

The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy. The Wizard of Oz in Wicked (2024) Joseph’s brothers resent him so much they can’t even stand the sight of him: וַיִּשְׂנְאוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יָכְלוּ דַּבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלֹם (Gen 37:4)—they hated him so much they could not dabro leshalom. The commentators […]

Hanukkah, Jewish Power, and the Future of Israel Education

Dec 16, 2024 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Hanukkah

Every year at Hanukkah, Jews everywhere celebrate the Maccabees’ military uprising against oppression. But in our day, many younger American Jews are experiencing discomfort with some of the ways that Israel uses power to fight its enemies and defend its interests, which has led to decreased support and weakened connection to the State.    

How should education about Israel— and advocacy on behalf of Israel—change in coming years? What lessons should Jews take away from events on and off campus in the wake of October 7, 2023?

Communicating Across Divides

Dec 9, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Argument is essential to Jewish life—it forms the basis of the Talmud and the classic Jewish joke about two Jews, three opinions. Yet today the challenge of talking across differences often seems insurmountable.

Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, director of the Block Kolker Center for Spiritual Life, shares insight into how to communicate with those whose opinion differs from yours. She will include tactics for creating structures that enable civility and explore the traps to avoid in your community.

Gleanings from “Zionism: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond”

Dec 2, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Public Event video | Video Lecture

How is Zionism finding expression in our communities? What are the challenges and opportunities in educating younger generations around these ideas? Rabbi Gordon Tucker, Vice Chancellor of Religious Life and Engagement, shares his thoughts from the convening and the new models of engagement with Israel that emerged from our conversations. 

The Origins of the Nation Israel: Biblical, Historical, and Archaeological Data

Nov 25, 2024 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

What can we learn from the Bible’s narratives about the emergence of the nation Israel? Some streams insist on the literal infallibility of biblical history, while others assert that the Jews are not indigenous to Canaan/Israel/Palestine.

Considering biblical texts and archaeological evidence, this session examines the origin of the Israelites as an ethnic and political unit. How does the debate on biblical authority resonate both within and outside academic circles?

Power in Pluralism: Jewish Community Organizing after October 7

Nov 18, 2024 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In American and Israeli societies, we often focus on what divides us and the differences in how we respond to tragedies. This session focuses on activism and organizing in Jewish religious communities across denominations, both in Israel and the US. How have we pulled together and what are the outcomes of this work?

Henrietta Szold’s Zionism and Ours

Nov 11, 2024 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Henrietta Szold, JTS’s first female student, was the most learned Jewish woman in America in the first half of the last century. Attracted to the Zionist dream as a teen in Baltimore, she channeled her intellect and love for the Jewish people into Hadassah. Defying gender norms and expectations, she transformed the way Jewish women thought about their capabilities and the way many Jews approach their relationship to Zionism.

Shemini Atzeret, Rain, & Resurrection

Sep 23, 2024 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shemini Atzeret

In this session, we explore the unique themes of the Shemini Atzeret and hold them in dialogue with this moment of brokenness, the weight of war, the complexities of peoplehood, and the ongoing need for healing and rebirth. 

Repentence and the Mystical ‘Rope’: The Divine/Human Relationship in Jewish Thought

Sep 16, 2024 By Shira Billet | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

One of the most striking images of the divine-human relationship in Jewish thought is the kabbalistic image of a rope or cord that extends from God in the heavens into the soul of the human being. We explore a diverse array of Jewish thinkers over the centuries who have found this metaphor meaningful, especially in times of challenge and suffering, giving them hope to continue to strive to become closer to God. In the context of the High Holiday season, we give special attention to connections between this metaphor and themes and liturgies of the High Holiday season.

Between the Lines: Torah and Technology

Sep 10, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In this volume, Torah and Technology: Circuits, Cells, and the Sacred Path, Rabbi Daniel Nevins draws on 3,000 years of biblical and rabbinic texts to respond to pressing questions of contemporary life. These essays are presented in the form of responsa, or rabbinic guidance for Jews committed to practicing halakhah, but they are also of interest to any person who confronts ethical quandaries in our technocentric times.

A New Understanding of Betzelem Elohim: Biblical Text Through the Lens of Disability Studies

Aug 12, 2024 By Ora Horn Prouser | Public Event video | Video Lecture

One of the most important biblical principles is that we are created betzelem Elohim, in God’s image. While this idea has been used to assert value and dignity to each of us as individuals, it has also enabled us to expand our understanding of the Divine. Studying the Bible through the lens of Disability Studies has made this especially powerful.