![A Vision of Religious Leadership](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
A Vision of Religious Leadership
Mar 29, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemini
After a profusion of dietary regulations, our parasha reemphasizes the fundamental purpose of Judaism: “For I the Lord am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy” (11:44). A pervasive sense of holiness is the key to this-worldly salvation. To live wisely requires self-control. There is no creation without contraction. To spring we first need to coil. The regimen of Judaism is to help us keep the big picture in sight, make wholesome distinctions and prevent the numbing of our spiritual sensibility. Transgressions erode our inner life, while doing mitzvot brings an infusion of holiness. In the words of the Rabbis: “If we embark on hallowing our lives on earth, we will be hallowed abundantly from above” (BT Yoma 39a).
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Everyday Distinctions
Mar 29, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Shemini
Ask an observant Jew why he or she keeps kosher. Many will reply, “because God so commanded” or “because it is a mitzvah in the Torah.” Many others will reply, “Because keeping kosher forces me to think about my Jewish identity every time that I sit down to eat. Kashrut compels me to make choices. Kashrut distinguishes me as a Jew.”
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For Whom Do We Dress?
Mar 22, 2003 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tzav
Parashat Tsav raises the issue of clothing, and how our outer presentation can mirror, or even influence, our thoughts and behavior.
![Keeping “The Fires of Israel” Lit](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
Keeping “The Fires of Israel” Lit
Mar 22, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav
In a session not long ago with Seminary students on religious services, I was asked about the restoration of a phrase from the siddur that the Conservative movement had dropped as early as the 1940’s.
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In Anticipation of the Meal
Mar 15, 2003 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Vayikra
Perhaps it is the most troubling passages of the Torah which cause us to think and learn the most. At first glance, we may find them most difficult to accept — and may want to reject them out of hand. But at second and third glances, we may find that our discomfort gives way to new learning and new understanding.
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Hearing God in the Silence
Mar 15, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayikra
I never heard my parents address each other by their first names. They showed their mutual affection, which remained palpable till late in their lives, by using pet names. My father called my mother “Mutti” (from the German word for mother – Mutter) and my mother always called him “Schatzi” (from the German word for treasure – Schatz). As my father aged, he developed the habit of saying “Mutti” to himself audibly and often, without ever intending to attract her attention. Alone in his study, he would emit the sound of her name when he rose from his desk to get another book or just reclined to rest for a moment. She was clearly the anchor of his life.
Read More![A Life of Self-Restraint](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
A Life of Self-Restraint
Mar 8, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pekudei
Midrash is the art of keeping an ancient sacred text alive. The Rabbis were masters of drawing water from stone, of transforming the most mundane passages of Torah into luminous nuggets of spirituality. Our parashah offers a provocative example of their creative touch.
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After the Revelation
Mar 8, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Pekudei
The Book of Exodus begins with God hidden. Not until the children of Israel are enslaved for some time, and cry out in their suffering, does God hear them. Only then does God’s presence become increasingly manifest as the plagues of Egypt come to their fatal conclusion and afterwards God drowns the Egyptian army in the Sea of Reeds. The Israelites receive their most intense experience of God on Sinai, where, as the Torah relates, they see and hear God. To paraphrase Heschel, what they see and hear is not clear; that they see and hear something, is.
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Gleanings Today
Mar 5, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Kedoshim
During a recent visit to Kansas City, I was talking to friends at my former congregation about their recent trip to the New York area. They had been to a wedding reception and marveled at the prodigious sushi bar. I smiled when they admitted to making the classic mistake of those not familiar with New York folkways: filling up on appetizers in the mistaken notion that they are the main meal.
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The Language of Names
Mar 1, 2003 By Charles Savenor | Commentary | Vayak-hel
In 1989, during the flight to my Junior Year Abroad experience in Israel, I chatted with the El Al flight attendants at the rear of the airplane. When asked my name, I made the conscious decision to introduce myself using my Hebrew name, Simcha. As these women of sephardic descent heard my name, they roared out in laughter. “Simcha, you cannot be Simcha. Simcha is a girl’s name.” They explained that in modern Israeli society, especially in sephardic circles, only girls went by the name Simcha.
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Bodies in Mirrors
Mar 1, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Ki Tissa
In the midst of an elaborate description of Bezalel’s artistic crafting of the Tabernacle, we read an unusual detail: “He made the laver of copper and its stand of copper, from the mirrors of the women who performed tasks at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting” (Ex. 38:8). This copper laver served as a basin for cleansing waters so that the priests could enter the Tabernacle in a state of ritual purity. Why would Bezalel craft such an important vessel from women’s mirrors? Why does the Torah mention this specific detail?
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Creation and Creativity
Feb 22, 2003 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tissa
When you sit down to center a piece of clay on the wheel, the first thing you must do is ‘center’ yourself — take a deep breath, let go of all extraneous thoughts, surrender control. You cannot force the clay into position with your hands or arms; rather, the message must emanate from your intellectual and emotional faculties: be quiet, be centered, be calm. To this, the clay responds.
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The Spirituality of Kafka’s Doll
Feb 22, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa
The story is told about Franz Kafka that the last time he visited Berlin, he chanced upon a little girl in a park awash in tears. When he inquired as to the reason for her distress, she sobbed that she had lost her doll. Compassionately, Kafka countered that not to be the case. The doll had merely gone on a trip and, in fact, Kafka met her as she was about to leave. He promised that if the little girl would return to the park the next day, he would bring her a letter from her doll. And so Kafka did for several weeks, arriving each morning at the park with a letter for his new friend.
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The Necessity of Inclusion
Feb 15, 2003 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Tetzavveh
The latter part of the book of Exodus describes the construction of the Mishkan, the portable tabernacle that served as the focus of God’s presence during the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert and beyond. These sections are characterized by a love of regularity and order. The same carefully selected few carry out the same intricately prescribed rituals the same way each day, using sacred objects, which have been standardized down to the last detail. Each aspect is described twice, first as God commands Moses, and then in its actual implementation, which matches the plans almost to the letter. In contrast, extemporaneous religious expressions, like the Golden Calf, are hazardous at best. There is no room for the novel amid the routine.
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Whole Bread
Feb 8, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Terumah
The weekly Torah readings are moving into territory unfamiliar to our contemporary experience. The Book of Genesis, set mainly in the Canaan and Egypt, mentions places that still exist and people whose names still resonate. The beginning of the Book of Exodus, with its account of the liberation from Egypt, maintains its grip today because that liberation continues to be a focus of Jewish consciousness and celebration.
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Between the Wilderness and Jerusalem: A Tale of Two Holy Spaces
Feb 8, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Terumah
This week’s parashah and haftarah are an exercise in counterpoint. Superficially, the construction of sacred space joins them in a common theme. While the Torah portion takes up the erection of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the narrative from the book of Kings recounts the building by Solomon of the First Temple in Jerusalem some 480 years later. The move is from a mobile sanctuary to a permanent one, from wood to stone. Still, the basic design remains the same, an oblong structure with the Holy of Holies (devir) at the rear, farthest away from the entrance. Likewise, the content of the Holy of Holies is unaltered: an ark covered by two large cherubim with outstretched wings. The ark itself contained only the two tablets which attested to the covenant between God and Israel sealed at Mount Sinai.
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The Abolition of the Death Penalty
Feb 1, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Mishpatim
In the closing days of his administration, outgoing IIlinois Governor George Ryan pardoned or commuted the sentences of all prisoners on the state’s death row. The governor’s action sparked a renewed debate about the death penalty in the United States. For Jews, this debate presents the opportunity to review and clarify the stance of Jewish law on capital punishment not only for our own information but in light of public policy discussions now underway.
Read More![Creation and Liberation](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/berkun_lauren_2.jpg)
Creation and Liberation
Feb 1, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Mishpatim
Why do we observe Shabbat rest? The most common response to this question is learned from last week’s Torah portion: we rest on Shabbat, because God rested on Shabbat. Thus, Shabbat becomes a “remembrance of Creation.” The law of Shabbat in the Ten Commandments highlights the connection between Shabbat and Creation:
“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:9–11).
![The Soul of Torah](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
The Soul of Torah
Jan 25, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro
Christianity turns on the doctrine of incarnation as formulated famously by the Gospel of John: “So the Word became flesh; he came to dwell among us, and we saw his glory, such glory as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (1:14). It is a doctrine that Jews tend to identify as uniquely Christian. Whereas both Judaism and Christianity equally acknowledged that at creation “the Word dwelt with God” (1:1) as both wisdom and instrument, Judaism refrained from ever endowing it with human form. Though valid, the distinction does not preclude the appearance in Judaism of the doctrine. For Judaism, the Word became incarnate as book.
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Holy Encounters
Jan 25, 2003 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Yitro
Three years ago, my wife, Miriam, and I traveled to Italy. While the art of Florence, architecture of Sienna, and vistas of San Gimignano overwhelmed the imagination and tantalized the senses, our most meaningful experience of that trip occurred in Rome. With only one day to visit the sites of this ancient city, a very special shidukh was arranged between us and a Jesuit priest, Father John Navone (American by birth with deep family roots in Italy). As we quickly discovered, Father Navone knows every nook and cranny of this city that is so beloved to him and his family. He exuded not only a special affection for Italy but also a love for humanity.
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