God’s Evolution
Nov 5, 2005 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Noah
Our sacred canon serves as the touchstone for tradition.
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Between Creation and the Flood
Oct 29, 2005 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Bereishit
In the beginning, Dr. Ismar Schorsch was a rigorous scholar, a great teacher, and Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary.
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The Inspirational History of Rosh Hashanah
Oct 5, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
If sanctity be measured by synagogue attendance, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur win hands down.
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What Is Love?
Oct 1, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Nitzavim
Love is surely a tough emotional state to prescribe by law.
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Torah In Our Mouths
Oct 1, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Nitzavim
Mystical streams within any given religion would have us believe that to be in God’s presence, one must separate oneself wholly from the material world. Routine distractions must be cast aside in order to experience the sacred. Yet, while meditation and reflection have their place in religious encounters, Judaism places its emphasis and value on the attachment to community. Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of Our Ancestors, teaches, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” The locus of moral and ethical strivings must be rooted in the building of life. Prolonged separation from community often leads one to paths of selfishness, zealotry, and destruction. Parashat Nitzavim is timed perfectly before the renewal of our Jewish lives on Rosh Hashanah – reminding us precisely how close a life of holiness is to our everyday lives.
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Raising the Bar
Sep 24, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tavo
Parashat Ki Tavo showcases the creativity of the rabbinic sages and offers a unique challenge to enhance our Jewish learning. The Torah reading opens with a declaration that each farmer had to say when he brought the first fruits of the harvest to the Temple, giving gratitude for the fruit, and ultimately recognizing the God who made his livelihood possible. The Israelite would recite a lengthy passage, a synopsis of Jewish history, beginning, “A wandering Aramean was my father” and ending, “He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Therefore now I bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O Lord, have given me” (Deuteronomy 26:5–10).
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The Language of the Jewish People
Sep 24, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo
The owner of the mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse we rented for August has a well-tended orchard of diverse fruit trees.
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Redeemed for This Reason
Sep 17, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
Hurricane Katrina united our country in common empathy and purpose. The outpouring of support, monetary and otherwise, has been greater than most of us could have hoped for or imagined. But was it really so surprising? The Torah suggests that our national response was correct but would not have expected any less.
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The Status of Women
Sep 17, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
At JTS’s opening barbecue for faculty and their families last week, my son and daughter-in-law told us sheepishly that their fourteenth wedding anniversary had caught them unawares.
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The Responsibility of Holding Office
Sep 10, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shofetim
Rabbi Hananiah, the Deputy High Priest, taught: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for if people did not fear it, they would swallow each other alive” (Pirkei Avot 3:2, trans. Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals, 264).
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Worthy Judges
Sep 10, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shofetim
This week opened with the mournful news of the passing of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. While we subscribe to a wide spectrum of views with regard to his decisions, he was undoubtedly a brilliant legal mind. Of his leadership on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, “Chief Justice William Rehnquist was the fairest, most efficient boss I have ever had . . . he cautioned that a judge steps out of the proper judicial role most conspicuously and dangerously when the judge flinches from a decision that is legally right because the bottom line is not the one ‘the home crowd wants.’ I hold him in highest regard and affection and will miss him greatly.” Justice Ginsburg’s tribute to Chief Justice Rehnquist speaks volumes about the extent to which a judge must be fiercely deliberate, independent, and fair in his or her decisions. Truly, we have lost a leader in that respect.
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Vanquishment Through the Written Word
Sep 3, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Re'eh
For a book that purports to be but a reprise of the other books of the Torah, Deuteronomy abounds with puzzling discrepancies.
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Core and Periphery
Sep 3, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Re'eh
Megiddo, an archaeological tel in Northern Israel, is situated at the crossroads of an ancient trade route. Indeed, it was the nexus in power struggles among the Canaanites, Egyptians, Israelites, Assyrians, and Babylonians. As such, Megiddo is a site of great biblical significance, especially in the context of this week’s Torah reading, Parashat R’eih. II Kings relates how King Josiah (639-609 BCE), who was one of the figures responsible for centralizing Israelite religion, was killed by Pharaoh Necho II. Accordingly, at the core of our parashah, we read of the sweeping legislation regarding the centralization of the Israelite sacrificial cult.
Judaism’s Activist Spirit
Aug 27, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Eikev
In his early Zionist tract, Rome and Jerusalem (1862), Moses Hess declaimed “that the Jewish religion is, above all, Jewish patriotism.”
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The Species of Israel
Aug 27, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Eikev
This past summer, I walked through a dream. I had the blessing, along with Rabbi David Hoffman, of leading a very special group through the length and breadth of the Land of Israel. Some forty-two leaders from Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico – many of them students of the JTS Kollot: Voices of Learning program – joined together in the presence of Chancellor Ismar Schorsch to journey through Jewish tradition and text. With Tanakh in hand, we began our journey at Beit Hatefuzot, The Museum of the Diaspora. There we were treated to a bird’s eye view of Jewish history. The following morning, we embarked on an expansive and emotional ten-day trek, in which we encountered the biblical, Rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods. More than a mission, this experience was a pilgrimage that animated Torah. And nowhere did this encounter come alive more than at Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel.
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A Time for Comfort
Aug 20, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
This week witnessed a historic and painful moment in the history of Modern Israel the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip. As many commentators have pointed out, this was the first time since 1967 that Israel has withdrawn unilaterally from territories occupied in the Six Day War. While Prime Minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged the profound national trauma of uprooting families living in the Gaza Strip, he gave voice to the reality of the situation.
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Constant Vigilence
Aug 13, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Devarim
The Ninth of Av or Tish’ah Be’av occurs this coming Sunday. After Yom Kippur, this commemoration is the most significant fast day of the Jewish year. We remember not only the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, but also many tragedies which befell the Jewish people over the course of our history. In addition to fasting, mournful liturgy is interwoven into the observance of the day. Most importantly, we read the Book of Lamentations. This tearful, moving, and graphic text describing the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. The opening word of this scroll captures its essence — aikha — how.
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On Writing Torah Commentaries
Jul 9, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hukkat
As I begin my twentieth and final year as Chancellor, I am mindful of the cautionary verse from Proverbs, wisely inserted by our sages in the morning liturgy: “Many are the designs of the human heart, but in the end, it is God’s plan that will prevail.”
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Who is Holy?
Jul 2, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Korah
This week’s parashah opens with a prideful challenge to the authority of Moses and Aaron as leaders of the Children of Israel. Korah and his cohorts, Datan and Aviram, “rise up against Moses together with two hundred and fifty Israelites.” Their claim against Moses and Aaron: “You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?” (Numbers 16:3). At first glance, Korah’s objection seems reasoned and justified. Perhaps this would-be leader is calling for democratization within the Israelite community. After all, as Rashi writes in his commentary on this verse, “for all of the congregation is holy – they all heard the words of Sinai from the mouth of God.”
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Truth and Mercy
Jun 25, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
Being deliberate in speech and generous in mercy stand at the heart of Parashat Sh’lah L’kha. At the opening of our Torah reading, God commands Moses to send leaders from each tribe to spy on the Land of Canaan. The timing seems auspicious. As the Israelites near the liminal moment of entry, it is fitting that God desires representatives to scout the land. Since the Israelites would soon be God’s agents in dispossessing the Canaanites of their territory, they needed to know what to expect. Regrettably though, the spies return from their mission hastily, reporting that “the people that dwells in the land is powerful, the cities are heavily fortified, and giants live there” (Numbers 13:28). Their brutally truthful report triggers hysteria among the Israelite community which demands a return to Egypt.
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