![Clothes That Make Us Human](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/plevan-300x300.jpg)
Clothes That Make Us Human
Sep 1, 2017 By William Plevan | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
Among the many joys of summertime in Manhattan is the chance to see a performance of Shakespeare in the Park. This year’s feast for eyes and ears was the magical romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. One of the key turns of the plot involves the sprite Puck casting a spell on the wrong young lover, because his only instructions were to enchant one with “Athenian garb.” Judging on fashion alone, poor Puck thought he had discharged his duties. Puck’s comedic error is of course another instance of one of Shakespeare’s favorite themes, the way our clothing becomes synonymous with our identity. Most famously, in Hamlet Shakespeare has the Danish noble Polonius tell his son Laertes that “the apparel oft proclaims the man.”
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Limbs
Aug 25, 2017 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Shofetim
Gavriella Kornsgold, Student, The Rabbinical School, and JTS Alumna (LC ’17, DS ’19)
Limbs (2017)
Sharpie, colored pencil, and acrylic on plexiglass
Read MoreAre trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city? (Deut. 20:19)
![The King’s Torah and the Torah’s King](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/barry_holtz_sq-300x300.jpg)
The King’s Torah and the Torah’s King
Aug 25, 2017 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Shofetim
This week’s Torah portion focuses on a wide array of topics, but underlying virtually everything we can see a thematic coherence well reflected in the parashah’s name (“judges”). The sidrah contains one of the most famous lines in the entire Bible, tzedek, tzedek tirdof: “Justice, justice shall you pursue” (Deut. 16:20). And throughout the parashah we see the Torah outlining various aspects of the pursuit of justice.
Read More![To Know or Not to Know](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/strasberg_square-300x300.jpg)
To Know or Not to Know
Aug 18, 2017 By Malka Strasberg Edinger | Commentary | Re'eh
The centralization of cultic worship is one of the major themes in the book of Deuteronomy. However, the place of that worship, the Temple, is described as “the place that God will choose,” with no mention of where that place is to exist. This week’s parashah, parashat Re’eh, introduces the theme that once in the Land of Israel, the Israelites are to worship their God in “hamakom asher yivhar Hashem” (the place that God will choose). This vague phraseology, which only alludes to a specific place but does not specify where that place is, is repeated 21 times throughout the book of Deuteronomy, with 16 of those occurrences in our parashah alone.
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Licensed to Kill (Kosher Animals)
Aug 18, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Re'eh
In Deut. 12:20–25, explicit permission is given for the slaughter and consumption of meat outside of the sacrificial system. The passage includes the phrase “as I have instructed you” (v. 21), and the Talmud identifies these words as the source of the various prescriptions for kosher slaughter (shehitah) (BT Hullin 28a).
Read More![Walking in God’s Paths](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Tim-Bernard-sq-300x300.png)
Walking in God’s Paths
Aug 11, 2017 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Eikev
Walking at our own pace creates an unadulterated feedback loop between the rhythm of our bodies and our mental state that we cannot experience as easily when we’re jogging at the gym, steering a car, biking, or during any other kind of locomotion. . . . When we choose a path through a city or forest, our brain must survey the surrounding environment, construct a mental map of the world, settle on a way forward, and translate that plan into a series of footsteps.
Read More—Ferris Jabr, “Why Walking Helps Us Think,” The New Yorker (September 2014)
![Ve’ahavta: A Pedagogy for Thriving](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/bill_robinson-300x300.jpg)
Ve’ahavta: A Pedagogy for Thriving
Aug 4, 2017 By Bill Robinson | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
What teachings of Judaism are helping you thrive in today’s world? How can you better keep these teachings in front of you at all times? And how can we help our children find in Judaism that which helps them thrive?
Read More![“Like Tefillin Straps, Roads”](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/lewis2-300x300.jpg)
“Like Tefillin Straps, Roads”
Aug 4, 2017 By Yitzhak Lewis | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
Dress me, kosher mother [. . .]
And with Shaharit, lead me to labor.
Read MoreMy land is wrapped in light as a tallit
Houses stand like phylacteries And like tefillin straps, roads ride on that hands have paved. [. . .]
![Judge Justly, Four Ways](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/lilly_kaufman_900_sq-300x300.jpg)
Judge Justly, Four Ways
Jul 28, 2017 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Devarim
Most of us are rarely called upon to judge other people, so when we read in the first chapter of our parashah about how we ought to judge ethically, we may not ever expect to act on this mitzvah. Then the jury summons comes in the mail, and suddenly we’re in a jury pool of over 100 people, awaiting selection for a massive white-collar criminal case. The issues of power, influence, and impartiality come up early.
Read More![An Oasis of Freedom and Justice](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/danny_nevins-300x300.jpg)
An Oasis of Freedom and Justice
Jul 28, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Tishah Be'av
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
Read More![Journeying through Jewish History](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nancy_sinkoff_sq-300x300.jpg)
Journeying through Jewish History
Jul 21, 2017 By Nancy Sinkoff | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
I first encountered this book in my supplementary Hebrew school at Temple Emanuel of Great Neck when I was a teenager. The documents, photographs, newspaper reports and Yiddish language characters entranced me then. . . . and still do. At that tender age, I thought I wanted to grow up to be a marine biologist. Instead, embedded in my young soul, those images of East European Jews, who had journeyed—like our forebears in this week’s parashah (Numbers 33:1-37)—from far away to a land they did not know, propelled me on a lifelong journey as a historian of the Jews of Eastern Europe.
Read More![Upgrading the Torah—and the World](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/ben_sommer_2016_sq-300x300.jpg)
Upgrading the Torah—and the World
Jul 21, 2017 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
Is God’s law perfect? Most of us would assume that anything created by an omniscient and omnipotent being must have no flaws. But a story in today’s parashah suggests otherwise—in a manner that shows a surprising similarity to a key concept of Jewish mysticism.
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Fearless Women
Jul 14, 2017 By Meredith Katz | Commentary | Pinehas
Many narratives coalesce in Parashat Pinehas, and it is challenging to review without connection to the current political and social climate. The daughters of Zelophehad make a proposal to inherit their father’s portion, as part of a land division framework aiming toward equality: “to the more thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to the fewer thou shalt give the less inheritance.” The daughters raise their claim with Moses et al. as women, demanding their right to inherit in the absence of any sons, a significant step for women in ancient times that is then added to the canon.
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I Will Get Back Up Again
Jul 14, 2017 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Pinehas
“What does your dad do at Google?”
One of our JustCity Leadership Institute pre-college program students explained that her mother works at Google in a significant leadership position. Yet each time she wears a Google T-shirt, people ask her what her father does there.
Read More![Fear, Truth, and a Donkey](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/joel_alter.jpg)
Fear, Truth, and a Donkey
Jul 7, 2017 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Balak
Bilam, the highly paid but visionless prophet, sits high in his saddle on his donkey’s back as she swerves off the path. She’s strayed, it seems, for no reason; an angel standing with sword drawn is as yet unseen by him. He beats the donkey to drive her back onto the path. The next time she stops short she traps her rider’s leg against a stone wall. He winces in pain. I imagine him throwing one hand down toward his leg and perhaps grabbing his headdress, by now slipping off, with the other. He frantically beats his donkey again, flailing to regain control. Bilam is coming undone: a prophet made a fool by an ass (Num. 22:22–25).
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Listening to Lions
Jul 7, 2017 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Balak
[Lions] have personalities, temperaments, moods, and they can be voluble about all this, sometimes chatty, sometimes (when they are working) radiating a more focused informativeness. Nor are the exchanges and the work in question suffering-free. In particular, they are not free of the suffering that accompanies failures of understanding, refusals and denials of the sort that characterize many relationships.
Read MoreVicki Hearne, Animal Happiness: A Moving Exploration of Animals and Their Emotions (172–173)
![Striking Out or Stepping Up: A Leadership Model for Our Times](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/marc_gary-300x300.jpg)
Striking Out or Stepping Up: A Leadership Model for Our Times
Jun 30, 2017 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Hukkat
“Moses entered the stage of Jewish history by striking (the Egyptian) and exited from the stage of Jewish history by striking (the rock).” This startling observation by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in his commentary on the Book of Numbers (Torah Lights: Bemidbar, 169) causes us to reflect deeply on the subject of Jewish leadership.
Read More![My Brother’s [and Sister’s] Keeper](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/sara_tauber_sq-300x300.jpg)
My Brother’s [and Sister’s] Keeper
Jun 30, 2017 By Sarah Tauber (z”l) | Commentary | Hukkat
The literature on sibling relationships shows that during middle age and old age, indicators of well-being—mood, health, morale, stress, depression, loneliness, life satisfaction—are tied to how you feel about your brothers and sisters. In one Swedish study, satisfaction with sibling contact in one’s 80s was closely correlated with health and positive mood—more so than was satisfaction with friendships or relationships with adult children. And loneliness was eased for older people in a supportive relationship with their siblings, no matter whether they gave or got support.
Read More—Robin Marantz Henig, “Your Adult Siblings May Be The Secret To A Long, Happy Life,” NPR (website), November 2014
![The Antidote to Korah](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Rabbi-Jan-Uhrbach-300x300.jpg)
The Antidote to Korah
Jun 23, 2017 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Korah
How to deal with a demagogue? Parashat Korah offers a case study in what works and what doesn’t.
The parashah begins with a dramatic confrontation. Korah gathers together with Datan, Aviram, On, and 250 community leaders, and hurls accusations at Moses and Aaron.
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Korah: Democrat or Demagogue?
Jun 23, 2017 By Alan Mittleman | Commentary | Korah
Korah is the first left oppositionist in the history of radical politics.
–Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (111)
How shall we read the Korah story? What is his rebellion about? Is Korah the first left-wing radical? He seems to want to level the distinction between leaders and masses. All of the people are holy, he claims. There is no need for a priestly caste which, in the wilderness setting, is a governance class.
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