JTS Torah Archive

Restoring a Commentary Maligned

Dec 8, 2017 By JTS Alumni | Commentary

By Dr. Morris M. Faierstein (GS ’75)

The Ze’enah U-Re’enah was first published about 1610 and has since been reprinted 275 times. Despite this great popularity, this edition is the first complete annotated critical translation of this classic to be published. Since the end of the nineteenth century, conventional wisdom has held that the Ze’enah U-Re’enah was a Yiddish translation of the humash written for women and ignorant men who could not understand the text in Hebrew. 

Senior Sermons: Class of 2019

Dec 6, 2017

Senior Sermons: Class of 2018

Dec 6, 2017

Breaking the Bank: The High Cost of Low-Income Living

Dec 6, 2017 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Why does it cost so much to be poor? NYC is an expensive place to live—and it’s the most expensive for New Yorkers living from paycheck to paycheck.

A discussion about how low-income New Yorkers manage their financial lives and the challenges they face, exploring how diverse resources, from loan funds to check cashers to fintech startups, are responding to the financial needs of struggling New Yorkers

Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World

Dec 4, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Mark R. Cohen’s new book Maimonides and the Merchants suggests that, like the Geonim before him, Maimonides wished to provide Jewish merchants an alternative and comparable forum to the Islamic legal system and thereby shore up an important cornerstone of communal autonomy.

A Sage for Today

Dec 1, 2017 By Barry Holtz | Commentary

In my new biography of Rabbi Akiva, I have tried to draw upon the latest scholarship about rabbinic stories to present the outlines of his life anew for our times, in the light of what we know about how to read these stories from our tradition and about the historical context of the ancient Jewish world. My goal was to present the various stories about Akiva’s life in an intellectually serious but accessible manner, highlighting their literary character and trying to discern the ways that Akiva’s story might speak to people today. 

Wrestling the Angels and the Demons within Us

Dec 1, 2017 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Vayishlah

In this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Vayishlah, we read of the patriarch Jacob’s journey home with his family after freeing himself and his entire clan from his father-in-law, Laban’s, control. Along the route, Jacob prepares himself for his eventual reunion with his older twin brother Esau, whom he fears to be vengeful. Right in the middle of the parashah, in between the description of Jacob’s preparations and his actual meeting with Esau, Jacob is involved in a transformative experience: a physical struggle with a stranger.

Can the Tribes of Modern Israel Dwell Together?

Nov 29, 2017 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video

On the 70th anniversary of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, a major step in the creation of Israel, the partitions within Israeli society threaten the very future of the State. Can the divisions be bridged between Israel’s secular, national religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab citizens? Can they talk to each other and work together to forge a new partnership? And what is the role of caring Diaspora Jews in achieving this goal?

What Makes a Book “Torah”?

Nov 24, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

In the manuscript age, what distinguished “Torah” from other writing? One of the key answers to this question is that manuscripts were fluid and each copy therefore different from any other, while Torah—as the word of God and the source of Jewish tradition—had to be precise and unchanging.

Escaping a Toxic Relationship

Nov 24, 2017 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Vayetzei

Poor Jacob is triply triangulated in Parashat Vayetzei! His boss, Laban, is not only his uncle, Rebecca’s older brother, but also his father-in-law, Leah and Rachel’s father. Leah and Rachel are bitter rivals, Leah resenting Jacob’s love for Rachel, and Rachel wishing for children when God has blessed only Leah with fertility. Complicating this tangle of relationships is the fact that Jacob and Laban work together, and Laban is not a fair employer. 

A Family of Covenant

Nov 17, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

The stories of Genesis are presented as family portraits, but simultaneously they describe the origins of a religious civilization. How did the people of Israel acquire and maintain its distinctive religious mission? Genesis offers not only a window into Israel’s past, but a blueprint for its future. Implicit is an invitation to contribute to this unfolding narrative, attaching the threads of our lives to the tapestry woven by our ancestors. 

Speaking to God, Speaking to People

Nov 17, 2017 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Text Study

By Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin (RS ’90)

Adonai, open my lips that my mouth may speak your praise. (Psalms 51:17)

My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from deceit. (BT Berakhot 17a, based on Psalms 34:14)

At different stages of my life prayer has been a challenge, but I have found it meaningful to think not just about each individual prayer but how the structure of the service helps us experience different facets of prayer. 

Leaving Home

Nov 10, 2017 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

To the best of my knowledge, Hayyei Sarah contains the only instance in Tanakh of a parent asking his child’s wishes. Laban and Betuel cannot come to an agreement with Abraham’s servant—who we’ll call Eliezer—about whether Rebecca should remain in Haran for a time or depart immediately to Canaan. And so, they ask Rebecca to state her preference. Contrary to her family’s express wishes, Rebecca decides to leave immediately.

A Time for Silence and a Time for Speaking

Nov 10, 2017 By Matthew Goldstone | Commentary | Text Study

Whoever is able to protest against the [sins of the] people of his household and does not protest is caught in the [sins] of his household; against [the sins of] the people of his city [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the people of his city; against [the sins of] the whole world [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the whole world.

—Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b

Listening, Love, and Citizenship: Healing the Fractures in American Society

Nov 8, 2017 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A panel discussion exploring what it means to be a citizen of the United States in today’s fractured society. What are the basic skills of citizenship that have eroded in our country? How can we learn to listen to and love one another to become responsible citizens?

The Rabbis, the Romans, and Us

Nov 3, 2017 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary

In my most recent book I take up a quintessentially American Jewish subject: can we adopt the broader culture in which we live and still be Jewish? Is it possible to have a strong Jewish identity while living as Americans who are university educated and share our lives with our gentile neighbors? To answer this I turned to the centuries and texts which birthed Judaism as we know it.

Women of Faith

Nov 3, 2017 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Vayera

Abraham passed God’s litmus test of faith. God commands Abraham to take his beloved son Isaac to the land of Moriah and kill him. Faithful Abraham does not hesitate. Genesis 22 may be the most loved and hated story in the Torah by every reader, no matter what their faith. Certainly, generations of Jews have struggled to make sense of this story, and of the father and God it portrays. 

Einstein and the Rabbi: Searching for the Soul

Oct 31, 2017 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Rabbi Naomi Levy (JTS ’89) takes us on a journey into the world of our souls, inspired by correspondence between Albert Einstein and a grieving rabbi. We often get so distracted by life’s surface demands and pressures that we rarely take the time to see what’s planted deep inside us. By listening to our souls we can uncover our true goodness, our calling, our yearnings, our gifts, yes, and even our greatness. Once we begin listening to our own souls we begin seeing the souls of others, seeing beyond our differences, to the truth that unites us and unites all things.

Land and People—When Things Get Real

Oct 27, 2017 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Lekh Lekha is one of my favorite parashiyot because it marks the entrance of the biblical narrative “into history.” Putting aside the historicity of the Bible—the subject of no small scholarly debate—Lekh Lekha departs from the preceding biblical text as it introduces us to the lands, people, and civilizations that will serve as a backdrop for the millennia of triumph and tribulation that await Abraham, his descendants, and their contemporaries. Until now, the story has been fundamentally supernatural and ahistorical—the creation of the world and all that is in it, heavenly gifts and divine punishment, a cataclysmic flood, and extensive genealogies of the forebears of future nations, whose lifespans number in the hundreds of years.

Distance Learning from the Back of Shul

Oct 27, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

When we think of “the book” (as in “the people of the book”), we picture a bound volume with pages sitting open before a reader on a table or a lap. It we are speaking of the Torah, that book is typically a humash, which will often be found in the seat back of the seat in front of you in the synagogue. The same is true of a prayer book.