Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 148a

Dec 12, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

Another type of behavior that our Sages proscribed on Shabbat includes acts that may lead to Torah prohibitions. For example, we have seen that writing two letters (or a single word) is seen by the Mishnah as a Torah prohibition. Our Sages inherited a non-Torah prohibition on transacting business over Shabbat, lest one record the transaction in a ledger. (The prohibition on business can already be found in the Prophets and Writings. See for example, Isaiah 58:13, Amos 8:5, and Nehemiah 10:32.) However, our Sages remained aware that this prohibition was not of the same magnitude as Torah prohibitions and treated it with leniency.

Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 38b

Dec 7, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

Last time, we mentioned that our Sages inherited prohibitions on a number of activities that are permitted by the Torah, but not in consonance with the spirit of Shabbat. Our Sages knew that prohibiting all everyday activities on Shabbat would not only be impossible, but also make Shabbat overly burdensome. Shabbat is a day of sanctified rest as an offering to Heaven, but it is also a day of earthly pleasures. As a result, the Sages limited these protective “Rabbinic prohibitions” on Shabbat to a small number of categories.

Learning From a Dream

Dec 5, 2008 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Vayetzei

This week’s Torah reading, Parashat Va-yetzei, begins with Jacob’s famous dream, in which he sees a ladder stretching all the way up to the very heavens. The dream ends with God’s promise to him that “the ground that you are lying upon I will give to you and your offspring. Your seed shall be as numerous as the dust of the earth, you shall spread out to the west, east, to the north and south . . . “

A Strong Woman in the Bible

Nov 29, 2008 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. When as a girl she sees a stranger at the well, she rushes to water his caravan of thirsty camels, and then invites him to stay at her house. When offered the chance to travel with this man back to a distant land and a mysterious husband, she volunteers without hesitation. When her pregnancy becomes difficult, she seeks out God and challenges Him with the bold question, “Why do I need this?” When her husband seems ready to bless the wrong son, she quickly conspires to rearrange the action so that Jacob will receive the primary blessing. In all of these actions, Rebecca is seen as a woman of strength and decisiveness.

Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 150a

Nov 29, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

In the above passage we move beyond the thirty-nine primary forbidden categories of labor. Each of those labors, now quite familiar to you from Mishnah Shabbat 7:2, was termed melakhah and is considered by our Sages to be prohibited by Torah. Here we introduce a new category: shevut. This is labor permitted by Torah but prohibited by Rabbinic tradition.

Babylonian Talmud Bava Kamma 2a

Nov 21, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

Regarding Shabbat, we learned: “The primary prohibited acts (avot melakhah) are forty less one” (Mishnah Shabbat 7:2). “Primary prohibited acts” implies that there must be secondary prohibited acts (toldot). The secondary acts are the same as [the primary ones]; there is no difference between a primary and a secondary [prohibited act] . . .

The Original Walking Man

Nov 15, 2008 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Vayera

On the topic of walking, the rock ‘n’ roll references come fast and furious. From Lou Reed’s teasing nudge to “take a walk on the wild side,” to the Rolling Stones’ and Peter Tosh’s advice to “keep on walking and don’t look back,” and from the Grateful Dead’s reflection on “walking around Grosvenor Square,” which leads to the revelatory insight that “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right,” to James Taylor’s evocation of the “walking man,” who “doesn’t do nothing at all,” but walk, our popular culture sees the very basic human act of walking in very personal and highly symbolic terms.

Mishnah Shabbat 7:2

Nov 15, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

We have already seen part of the list of thirty-nine forbidden labors of Shabbat contained here in Mishnah Shabbat 7:2. Here is the list in full. At first it looks as if the list is just a compendium of labors commonly performed in the ancient world. On closer inspection, we see that the list falls nicely into four categories of labor. We have already seen that the Talmud (Shabbat 74b) refers to the first of these groupings as sidura d’pat, the order of making bread. We see here that the mishnah also views the labors leading up to the production of clothing (group two), those used in producing scrolls (group three), and those needed to construct shelter (group four), as prohibited by Torah.

Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 3a, 107a

Nov 8, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

We are able to understand clearly wrong acts and clearly right acts with ease. Robbing the local grocery is readily categorized as bad behavior in our minds. Helping a less able person across the street is just as readily categorized as good behavior. Many acts, however, fall into a gray area. Is stealing to feed one’s family a bad act? What about exceeding the speed limit to arrive on time at a child’s piano recital or soccer game? There are many acts we can think of that we would describe as technically forbidden, but mitigated by the circumstances.

Taking the Journey with Abraham

Nov 7, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Five short verses after he (and we) first encounter that Land on which the Jewish future will turn ever after, a famine sends Abraham down to the place where he (and we) spend the remainder of chapter 12 of Genesis, a foreign land where he gets embroiled in a complex interaction with the Pharaoh that foreshadows a great deal of the text and history to come.

Mishnah Shabbat 7:2

Nov 1, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

These three sources provide us with a window into the spiritual and aesthetic experience that the observance of Shabbat is supposed to create.

The First Mitzvah

Oct 24, 2008 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Bereishit

If the Torah is fundamentally a book of law, a work intended to instruct us on how to live a life that is holy and good, why did the Torah begin with the story of creation? More precisely, why did the Torah begin with the story of Genesis—of God’s creation of the world—and not the first commandment to the Israelites which is to establish a calendar: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of the months,” found later in Exodus 12? This is the first question that Rashi, the central medieval commentator on the Torah, asked on the opening words of the book of Genesis.

Babylonian Talmud Hulin 5a

Oct 20, 2008 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Text Study

These two talmudic texts are really two sides of the same coin. Shabbat is often called yesod ha-emuna (the foundation of our faith). The Bible repeatedly refers to it as an eternal sign of the covenant between God and the people Israel, weekly proclaiming both the Divine authorship of all Creation and the exodus from Egypt. One can readily understand the Jerusalem Talmud tractate Nedarim’s claim that Scripture values Shabbat as much as all the other mitzvot combined.

“This Is Water” and This Is Joy

Oct 18, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Sukkot

There is an almost organic progression from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. However, when we get caught up in preparations for the holidays, we risk missing the intended effect. From Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur we work on deconstructing ourselves and our worlds. We stand together and seek to expose our inner selves, leaving us vulnerable and open. The language of Yom Kippur prepares us for this feeling—we are not atoning for our sins as we do at the beginning of Leviticus when the laws of sacrifice are first introduced, but on another level altogether. As we learn during our Torah reading, on Yom Kippur we atone from sin (Lev. 16:30). Through the day we literally achieve a level of purity—during the S’lichot and Avodah services we recite over and over again the verse, “on this day we are purified.” At the end of Ne‘ilah, we are left spiritually lighter.

Singing of Freedom

Oct 9, 2008 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Tishah Be'av | Yom Kippur

Maya Angelou’s celebrated poem, “Caged Bird” (Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing. Random House, 1983) has long inspired me, especially at this time of the year. Grippingly, the poem contrasts “a free bird [who] dares to claim the sky” with “a bird that stalks down his narrow cage,” a creature of limited vision and range. Although the “caged bird stands on the grave of dreams,” he still has longing in his heart.

The Journey of Life

Oct 4, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Shabbat Shuvah | Vayeilekh

There is so much fundamentally wrong with the world today. As Chancellor Eisen wrote in his High Holiday message this year, “On bad days, the problems seem utterly beyond managing. On good days, they call for a degree of judgment, sacrifice, and national unity seldom seen in our country or our world.” My fear is that we have actually become too accustomed to calamity; too proficient at responding to disaster.