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How Full of Awe Is This Place!

Nov 28, 2014 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Vayetzei

In 1969, as a senior pursuing a BFA at the University of Memphis, my mother, Ann Kibel Schwartz, made a series of prints, including this one on themes from Genesis, as her senior thesis. She drew the images for these prints from magazines, newspapers, and print advertisements. The images were starkly modern, but their juxtaposition in collage, drawing on the ancient themes of the Torah, created an old-new whole.

Father, Have You No Blessing Left for Me?

Nov 21, 2014 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Toledot

In Parashat Toledot, the saga of our somewhat dysfunctional ancestral family continues, and included within is one of the family’s saddest and most poignant episodes. Yitzhak, scion of the family and heir to his father’s covenant with God, has just married at the age of 40. He and his wife, Rivkah, remain childless for 20 years, when, in response to his entreaties to God, she conceives. Unlike her late mother-in-law’s easy pregnancy at an advanced age, Rivkah’s pregnancy is complicated. We are told right away that “the children, the ‘sons’ in fact, were struggling within her womb” (Vayitrotzetzu habanim bekirbah; Gen 25:22). However, she does not know the reason for her discomfort and distress.

Who Inherits Abraham?

Nov 14, 2014 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

It is a well-known, if vaguely uncomfortable, psychological phenomenon that when looking for a partner, people are often attracted to those who are similar to their parents in appearance and personality. It is easy to see the logic behind this; when planning our futures, we seek that which is familiar to us from our pasts. This notion is often thought of as a modern phenomenon, reflecting a time when people choose their own mates. However, closer examination dates this concept back to the Torah, starting with the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.

Abraham’s Search: A Hallmark of Human Grief

Nov 14, 2014 By Allison Kestenbaum | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

In an oft-told Buddhist story, a woman loses her son and is inconsolable. She approaches the Buddha and begs him to bring her son back. He instructs her to go around the village from house to house, seeking a single mustard seed from any home where no one has died. If she can find such a mustard seed, he will restore her son to life. So the woman knocks on each door and finds that there is no household that has not experienced loss. She returns without the mustard seed but with an enlarged awareness of the universality of loss that leads her to a path of compassion and peace.

Looking Upward and Outward

Nov 7, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera

Sight and vision play an important role in the two opening narratives of Parashat Vayera.

An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the JTS Library

Nov 7, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayera

The Hebrew Bible in which this engraved frontispiece is found was printed in Venice in 1739 at the request of a physician named Isaac Foa. In addition to the Hebrew text, it contains Italian explanations of difficult passages. The engraver, Francesco Griselini (1717–1787), illustrated many non-Jewish works as well as notable borders for megillot, and later became known for his scholarly writing on natural history.

The Eyes Have It: Looking at the Text

Oct 31, 2014 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Matthias Stom’s “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham” (c. 1638)—brought to my attention by Mimi Kaplan, a student at the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary—is a proverbial picture worth a thousand words.

Claiming Our Ancestors: The Case of Terah

Oct 31, 2014 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

For all of us, there is no going without leaving; and so it was for Abraham: “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and the house of your father to the land that I shall show you” (Gen. 12:1) [emphasis added]. And when we leave places, we leave people as well. When Abraham departed for Canaan he left behind, among others, his father Terah. And it was always thus: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother” (2:24).

Species Purity and the Great Flood

Oct 24, 2014 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Noah

Omnicide is a dramatic move, on that we can all agree. But what causes the Creator to grow violently disgusted with the creatures that had just recently been praised as “good” and blessed with fertility?

And Now, You Pray?

Oct 21, 2014 By Michael R. Boino | Commentary | Noah

“And Now, You Pray?” explores both human and Divine responsibility in Parashat Noah. The piece utilizes several sources that explore voices of protest or requests for help, both those which are voiced as well as those suppressed or ignored.

Mortals and Immortals

Oct 17, 2014 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Bereishit

We human beings tend not to see something that doesn’t fit our preconceived notions, including when we read the Torah.

Minding Our Words

Oct 17, 2014 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Bereishit

On Simhat Torah, we complete the reading of the humash—all 79,796 Hebrew words of it—and when we’re done, what do we do? We roll it up to the very beginning and start to read it all over again. Words, words, words. Devarim (Deuteronomy)—which, of course, means “words”—ends with Moses’s death after the conclusion of his lengthy final oration; Bereishit opens with God demonstrating the power of words by creating the world with them.

An Environmental Journey

Oct 14, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Sukkot

One of my sweetest memories as a rabbinical student at The Jewish Theological Seminary relates to the holiday we welcome this week, Sukkot.

The Difference a Day Can Make

Oct 3, 2014 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Yom Kippur

Wouldn’t it be grand to wipe the slate clean? What if there were a day in the calendar when the slate was simply wiped clean once again? No marks against you. No petty quarrels remembered, no grudges borne, no more grievances for trespasses petty or grievous. What if?

Expelling Our Own Scapegoats

Oct 3, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Yom Kippur

This coming Shabbat culminates the period of ‘aseret yemei teshuvah, the 10 days of repentance, as we commemorate Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On This Very Day

Sep 26, 2014 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Shabbat Shuvah | Yom Kippur

It’s difficult to overstate the pathos of Moshe’s last days. This man (and he is most assuredly a man, not a god, not a saint), who never wanted to be a leader—and after his first, impulsive attempt at leading was met with contempt from those he tried to save and condemnation from Pharaoh, his adoptive father (Exod. 2:11–15)—carried the burdens of prophetic leadership with fierce loyalty to both of his masters, God and the people.

Teshuvah: Seeking the Hidden Face of God

Sep 26, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Shabbat Shuvah

This coming Shabbat, the Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, is known as Shabbat Shuvah, the “Sabbath of Return.”

Choose Life and Torah

Sep 19, 2014 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh

The Torah wants to speak to Children of Israel in every time and place, in a way that leads them—leads us—to carry forward the project that Moses has directed. It succeeds in that effort: we too are stirred by Moses’s language, compelled by his vision, moved to undertake responsibility for his Torah. Four passages in Parashat Nitzavim seem to me especially crucial to Moses’s teaching and our response.

The Covenant and the Land

Sep 19, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh

At the opening of Parashat Nitzavim, the Israelites stand rooted before Moses and God. A captive and diverse audience, they are recipients of a message that is both immediate and transcendent in nature.

Reflective Learning in the Season of Teshuvah

Sep 12, 2014 By Jason Gitlin | Commentary | Ki Tavo

While the formal Hebrew title for each book of Torah is today derived from a word in its first verse, the Rabbis regularly employed a different logic: use a name that captured the book’s main theme.

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