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On the Sanctification of Time
Apr 8, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Metzora
For as long as I knew her, my mother suffered from psoriasis. Her elbows were scaly and her shoulders covered with a patina of dandruff. A close look at her hair would show the lesions on her head from which it came. Psoriasis is not life-threatening, merely discomforting and unsightly. It is related to nerves as much as anything and can flare up with stress.
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The Sanctity of the Torah
Apr 1, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Tazria
It is not often that we read from three sifrei Torah on one Shabbat. But this week Shabbat displays a bit of the pageantry we associate with Simhat Torah because of the convergence of three sacred moments: the regular parasha for the week, Tazri·a; the first day of the new month of Nisan (Rosh Hodesh); and the fourth of the four special Sabbaths before Passover, Shabbat ha-Hodesh. So in addition to the sefer Torah forTazri·a, we take out two other scrolls for the readings from Numbers (28:9-15) and Exodus (12:1-20) appropriate for the occasions. To read from three books of the Torah out of the same scroll would be unwieldy and time-consuming (a lot of holy rolling!). Hence three scrolls, to avoid burdening the congregation with distracting delays.
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When Religious Leadership Fails
Mar 25, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemini
“Joy waits around for no one. The person who celebrates today may not be celebrating tomorrow, nor the person who is afflicted today may not be afflicted tomorrow.” This is the sober comment of the midrash on Aaron’s tragedy. At the culmination of his installation as priest of the Tabernacle, his two sons are struck down by God’s wrath. The same divine fire which had just descended from above to consume Aaron’s altar offering, a public sign of God’s favor, returns to kill Nadab and Abihu when they commit a cultic infraction. What began with exaltation ends in grief (Leviticus 9:23-24; 10:1-3).
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A New Ark of the Covenant
Mar 4, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pekudei
The heart of Israel’s ornate Tabernacle in the wilderness was the Ark of the Covenant. From above the extended wings of the two cherubim affixed on top of the Ark, God’s voice would emanate to address Moses. It constituted the holiest spot in the Tabernacle, and was approached by the High Priest but once a year on Yom Kippur. Moreover, the Ark was the first part of the sanctuary that Moses was instructed to build. After inviting Israel to make “Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them (Exodus 25:8),” God immediately continues, “They shall make an ark of acacia wood… (Exodus 25:10).”
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Why Leviticus?
Mar 1, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayikra
A couple of years ago, a commercial publisher put out a new popular, abridged edition of the Bible. Among the omissions was the entire book of Leviticus, whose preoccupation with arcane ritual allegedly holds no interest for the modern reader. I suspect that many of us would agree. We prefer prophets to priests, ethics to ritual and verbal prayer to animal sacrifices. Our egalitarian sensibility is likewise offended by hierarchical religion.
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The Seeds of Democracy
Feb 25, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayak-hel
The Hertz Humash often confronts us with bones of contention long buried. Written in the interwar period by the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Joseph H. Hertz, the first graduate of the Seminary in 1894, it resonates with the echoes of Christian biases and Jewish anxieties stirred up by the Jewish struggle for equal rights in the nineteenth century. A fine example is to be found in this week’s parasha on Exodus 35:34, where Rabbi Hertz writes: “The opinion is often expressed that there is no art in Judaism; that the Jew lacks the aesthetic sense; and that this is largely due to the influence of the Second Commandment which prohibited plastic art in Israel (p. 376).”
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Mountains Hanging by a Hair
Feb 18, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa
The Mishnah, edited by Rabbi Judah the Patriarch around the year 200, describes the laws of Shabbat as “mountains hanging by a hair,” because its vast legal articulation rests on such a slight scriptural base. The comment is disarmingly candid and wholly accurate. From the Torah itself we know that the weekly observance of Shabbat is to be the centerpiece of the Israelite religious edifice, yet we garner very little about how the Torah understands the concept of rest.
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The Secret of Judaism’s Vibrancy
Jan 21, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro
The insignia for a Jewish chaplain in the armed forces of the United States is the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, worn prominently on both lapels. My father, the immigrant rabbi, wore his with pride when he was a civilian chaplain at the Valley Forge Army Hospital during World War Two and the Korean War, as did I when I served a two-year stint as an army chaplain from 1962-64 at Fort Dix and in Korea. The insignia has always appealed to me because of what it represents: the core experience of God by Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai. What could be more central? This is the event that determines the nature of Judaism and the destiny of its adherents
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Hearing Revelation
Dec 24, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemot
The Torah devotes nearly 40 verses to the exchange between God and Moses at the burning bush. No divine-human encounter of a personal nature gets similar coverage. The wealth of material gives us an idea of how revelation works, then and now. For the Torah is more than a collection of one-time religious experiences beyond our ken. God’s voice continues to fill the universe. We need to relearn how to hear it.
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Israel Divided
Dec 10, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash
As you know, the Haftarah is the prophetic selection with which we take leave from the weekly parasha. The word is a noun which means, “to bring (the Torah reading) to a close.” We do not depart from the Torah abruptly, but gradually with a final reading from the Prophets, chanted from a printed book rather than a handwritten scroll. We withdraw from the realm of the sacred slowly. The prophetic passage chosen always relates to the content of the parasha for that week.
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The Burden of Peoplehood
Dec 4, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
Sold into slavery at the age of 17, Joseph attained the post of vizier of Egypt by the time he was 30. That would have been a remarkable feat by a native; for a foreigner, it simply boggles the mind. Only Pharaoh stood between him and absolute power. Joseph had deciphered Pharaoh’s premonition of catastrophe and urged decisive action on a national scale. And Pharaoh rewarded the messenger by appointing him to carry out his own counsel. He also bestowed upon him all the trappings of power, including an arranged marriage with the daughter of an Egyptian priest.
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“Who Is Mighty?”
Nov 26, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayeshev
Ben Zoma, a second-century sage, died so young that he never attained the title “rabbi.” Yet his wisdom exceeded his years. As proof, I offer his tantalizing paradox: “Who is mighty? One who conquers his evil impulse!” How contrary to the popular culture of contemporary America where strength – physical and external – is defined as a manly trait, to be measured competitively. The young Ben Zoma, in contrast, defines strength as an inner quality of a moral nature, equally applicable to women and men. The real challenge of life is not to subdue others but to subdue ourselves. Self-mastery is the epitome of true strength.
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The History of Jewish Foreign Affairs
Nov 19, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayishlah
The meeting of Jacob and Esau after a separation of twenty years is preceded by a slow and suspenseful build-up. The Torah’s exquisite narrative skill does not allow the story to rush headlong to its climax. For our part, we would much prefer to hurry through Jacob’s extensive preparations, at least till we reach his night-long bout with an unknown adversary, which ends in the bestowal of a new name on Jacob: “Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed (Genesis 32:29).”
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Holding Up Heaven (In Memory of Nahshon Waxman)
Oct 22, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayera
We turn to this week’s Parasha numbed by the brutal kidnapping and murder of Corporal Nahshon Waxman just outside of Jerusalem, two miles from his home. Terrorism again shocks us with its power to outrage, disrupt and paralyze civilized society. The weapon of the savage few to force their will on the decent majority, terrorism reminds us of just how easy it is to wreak havoc on modern urban life. In contrast to Abraham’s inquiry about the minimum number of good people necessary to save Sodom, we find ourselves asking how few terrorists does it take to bring a modern city or country to its knees?
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The Power of Circumcision
Oct 15, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Unlike Shabbat, circumcision is not a creation of the Jewish religious imagination. It was widely practiced in the ancient Near East, though not in Mesopotamia from where Abraham and his clan migrated. Many of the building blocks of the Torah are borrowed from surrounding cultures. The most notable example is the system of animal sacrifices as the preferred way to worship God. The synagogue, with verbal prayer based on a sacred book, is the true religious breakthrough of Judaism and not the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple in Jerusalem. The originality of the Torah often lies in its inspired recycling of older religious materials. Adroit adaptation invests a common custom with new meaning that is often stunning.
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Salvation Through Moderation
Oct 8, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Noah
Last week was a good week for the Seminary and Judaism: a new generation of incoming students arrived to study at one of its four New York schools. They number nearly 200 full-time students, including the largest entering classes ever in our Cantorial and Rabbinical Schools, 20 new masters students in Jewish education and 34 new undergraduates in List College. Many come with extensive Jewish education and from the finest universities in the U.S. and Canada. Above all, they are highly motivated, eager to fill their lives with Jewish content and purpose. Given half a chance when finished, this generation of students will serve the Jewish community for decades with an inspiring blend of idealism and competence.
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The Profundity of Genesis
Oct 1, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bereishit
The Torah’s story of creation is not intended as a scientific treatise, worthy of equal time with Darwin’s theory of evolution in the curriculum of our public schools. The notes it strikes in its sparse and majestic narrative offer us an orientation to the Torah’s entire religious worldview and value system. Creation is taken up first not because the subject has chronological priority but rather to ground basic religious beliefs in the very nature of things. And I would argue that their power is quite independent of the scientific context in which they were first enunciated.
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Strengthening Judaism
Jul 2, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas
In 1962 I graduated rabbinical school and entered the army for a two-year stint as a chaplain. Such national service was then still required of all JTS graduates before they could take a pulpit. After completing chaplaincy school in New York, I drove to my first assignment at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I arrived in the late afternoon and decided to visit the Jewish chapel where I would preside without delay. That was my first mistake.
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The Death of Miriam
Jun 19, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hukkat
Biblical narrative begs for reader participation. Time and again we come across a story short on context, background and human emotions, traces of an event barely recalled and crying out for elucidation. This week’s parasha contains a gem of an example.
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Our Journey in the Wilderness
Jun 4, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
The history of Israel in the wilderness is a textbook of religious wisdom. Perhaps the most basic principle it teaches is that miracles don’t create believers. We are inclined to think that given what the people had witnessed in Egypt and at the Reed Sea and before Mt. Sinai, they would have acquired an unmovable faith in God. And that is precisely what the Torah asserts after God rescued Israel at the Reed Sea, in a passage that we still recite daily in our morning prayers.
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