JTS Torah Archive

In the Wake of the Golden Calf: Is God Punishing Us?

Jul 6, 2020 By Yedida Eisenstat | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Israel’s fashioning of the Golden Calf–an immediate and direct violation of the first commandment they had just heard directly from God—led God to threaten to destroy all of Israel. Responding to this crisis, Moses protected Israel from God’s temper and renegotiated the terms of the people’s relationship with God. In this session, we revisit this episode and closely read a number of fascinating interpretations. In particular, we focus on the questions of divine justice and mercy raised in Rashi’s comment that in every generation God will exact a little bit of punishment from Israel for fashioning the Golden Calf.

Taking the Long View: Lessons of Leadership

Jul 3, 2020 By Shira D. Epstein | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

The iconic story in our parashah of Moses striking the rock to bring forth water for the People of Israel is often framed as a morality tale, the consequence of a toxic—and disastrous—combination of unchecked rage and faltering faith. Indeed, God doles out the harshest possible punishment to Moses for flouting God’s directive to speak to the rock, in full display of the congregation: “Since you did not have faith in Me to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly to the Land which I have given them” (Num. 20: 12).

Remembering the Pandemic: Learning from Yehuda Amichai

Jun 29, 2020 By Barbara Mann | Public Event video | Video Lecture

What will we remember from this pandemic? And how will we preserve and pass down the memory of those we’ve lost to future generations? Through a close reading of Yehuda Amichai’s “And Who Will Remember the Rememberers?”, a poem sequence exploring Israel’s memorialization of 1948, we reflect on the elusiveness of memory, the limits of public forms of memorializing and mourning, and the paradoxical relationship between memory and forgetting.

When Push Comes to Shove: Protests in the Wilderness and in Our Cities

Jun 26, 2020 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Korah

As I sit down to write this Torah commentary on Parashat Korah—the story of a protest against the political and religious authority of Moses and Aaron—tens of thousands of people are in the streets of our major cities protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the killings and harassment of other black men and women throughout our nation. Of course, the two protests—the Korah rebellion in the wilderness of Sinai and the street protests in our major cities—have virtually nothing in common. Korah and his followers sought personal aggrandizement while the protesters out my window seek racial justice. Nevertheless, we should ask: What does our Torah parashah teach us in this pregnant moment of anguish and unrest?

Longing for the Land: Understanding the Dream and Challenges of the Modern State of Israel

Jun 25, 2020 By Matthew Berkowitz

“A Time to Weep”: The Power of Lament in Times of Crisis

Jun 22, 2020 By Alan Cooper | Public Event video | Video Lecture

More than a century ago, William James asserted that prayer was “the very soul and essence of religion.” At the same time that James was writing, biblical scholars were identifying and analyzing the forms and genres of biblical prayer. One of the most prominent of them is the lament, in which worshippers (individual or communal) cry out to God in times of duress. The effusion of pain and grief is a way of reaching out for the knowledge and comfort of God’s Presence—for reassurance that the suffering has been noticed and that God may be moved to provide relief. In this class, we consider selected prayers of lament in order to discern the continuing power of the genre as form of prayerful expression.

The Art of the Jewish Family: A History Of Women In Early New York In Five Objects

Jun 22, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

An online discussion with Dr. Laura Arnold Leibman about her recent book.

Reflections at a Time of Crisis and Change

Jun 15, 2020 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

A conversation between Chancellor Arnold Eisen and Rabbi Micah Peltz of Temple Beth Sholom (Cherry Hill, NJ) about the challenges of COVID-19, racial injustice, and other issues confronting our world and the Jewish community today.

What True Leadership Demands

Jun 15, 2020 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

This is truly a fateful parashah. For it is in this week’s Torah reading that we learn why Israel is condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the Promised Land. The details of the story are straightforward: Moses chooses twelve representatives, one from each of the tribes, to scout the land that the people are about to enter. The spies are given a very specific assignment: Come back with facts—is this a good land? Are the peoples who live there strong or weak? What is the produce of this land like? (Num. 13:17-20) 

Literature as Lifeline: What were Jews Reading and Writing in the Ghettos?

Jun 15, 2020 By Edna Friedberg | Public Event video | Video Lecture

During the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of Jews were imprisoned in urban prison zones known as ghettos. Reading and writing offered a form of spiritual sustenance to these communities under siege. This is an exploration of the literature that Jews passed around the ghettos–novels, poetry, religious commentary, and even dark humor.

The Journey

Jun 12, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

How do we progress toward our goals? Individually and societally, how do we know when to move forward, and which direction to go?

Is There a Jewish Continuity Crisis?

Jun 8, 2020 By Michal Raucher | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Dr. Michal Raucher, JTS fellow and assistant professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University, examines the phenomenon of Jewish leaders Invoking the threat of a demographic crisis to implore young Jews to procreate at higher rates. Using biblical, rabbinic, and contemporary texts, she’ll consider what it would mean to think about Jewish continuity not solely in terms of creating more Jews but also cultivating and supporting the values central to our tradition.

The Torah of Large-Scale Projects

Jun 5, 2020 By Ashira Konigsburg | Commentary | Naso

Naso opens up with a census of the Levites, who will be responsible for transporting parts of the Mishkan. Num. 4:3 specifies that those who will be engaged in this work are to be between the ages of 30 and 50 and fit for service when the Mishkan is operating.

The Immigration Crises Then and Now: What Are the 21st Century Possibilities?

Jun 1, 2020 By Ruth Messinger | Public Event video | Video Lecture

We look at our Jewish history as immigrants in ancient and modern times and then consider the status and treatment of immigrants today in the U.S. and elsewhere.  We will briefly review U.S. law and practice on immigration and discuss what the options are for making change and consider what the Jewish position should be on these issues. 

Ruth’s Torah Matters Now

May 28, 2020 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Shavuot

Like every Jewish holiday, Shavuot has seasonal and historical components. It celebrates the gifts of Torah and of the spring harvest. Both bounties manifest God’s glory, sustain Israel, and are captured masterfully by our liturgy. 

The Ten Commandments in 20/20

May 26, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shavuot

The Ten Commandments, read on the first day of Shavuot, are a foundational text of Judaism. But their prominence is also a puzzle. Why were these statements singled out from all other mitzvot to be publicly proclaimed to all Israel? What gives these brief pronouncements their distinctive significance?

Our Sacred Partnerships

May 22, 2020 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Bemidbar

The Midrash teaches us that God destroyed the world several times before creating our world (Bereishit Rabbah 3:7 and 9:2). Famously, after the flood, God establishes a covenant with Noah, Noah’s sons, and all living things. God says: “I will maintain My covenant [beriti] with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:11). When we read this verse in light of the midrash, we understand that God came very close to destroying the world again, but managed to enact a symbolic destruction, providing some people and some of the living creatures with a way to survive. This covenant is the vehicle for keeping humanity and all of creation connected with the divine even when rupture looms as a possibility.

Fake News and the Resurgence of Antisemitism

May 18, 2020 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

How can we make sense of the resurgence of antisemitism from both right and left a mere 70 years after the Holocaust? Together we’ll examine foundational texts that gave rise to hatred of Jews and Judaism and reflect on what we can learn from them about how best to respond to today’s manifestations. 

The Nature of Peace

May 15, 2020 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

The description of peace and prosperity in this week’s Torah portion seems particularly fitting for our current situation.

What Should an Educated Jew Know? When and Why This Question Emerged in the 18th Century—and Continues to Confound Us

May 11, 2020 By Jack Wertheimer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

What should a literate Jew know about Jewish civilization and its foundational texts? And what obligation do Jews have to acquire knowledge so they can function well in society at large? For reasons we will explore, these questions surfaced intensely during the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment. How they were answered then and how these questions continue to reverberate in our time will be addressed in this online class.