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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageLeading with Absence
Feb 12, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Tetzavveh
With the first words of our parashah, we see the shadow, but not the body, of a man.
“V’ata tetzavvah et b’nai yisrael” (Exod. 27:20): “And you shall instruct the children of Israel” in the production of oil for the menorah to be used in the Tabernacle.
Only two verses later we read:
“V’ata hakrev eilekha et aharon ahiekha v’et banav eto” (28:1): “And you shall bring forward Aaron your brother and his sons . . . to serve Me [God] as priests.”
Read MoreWhat Our Clothes Can Do For Us
Feb 12, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tetzavveh
I recall first grasping the wise adage that “the clothes make the man” in a dressing room at the Kennedy Center between acts of the Washington Opera’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. After performing as a peasant child in the chorus, I needed to change quickly into the opulent regal attire for my other role as Tsareyvitch — the tsar’s son. Exchanging my drab brown clothing for a multicolored outfit of silk, sequins, and rhinestones completely shifted my sense of self and purpose.
Read MoreOur Gifts to the World
Feb 5, 2011 By David G. Roskies | Commentary | Terumah
Most visibly, most palpably, this portable structure is what set the Israelites apart from the nations, that bodied forth their difference, their chosenness. It is by carrying out God’s design with such zeal, artistry, and precision, with such an outpouring of gifts, of terumah, that this ragtag of former slaves turned itself into a nation of priests.
Read MoreTextual Transmission
Feb 5, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Terumah
In what font does the Torah need to be written?
A glance inside a Torah scroll reveals that the font is indeed different than what is printed in standard siddurim and other Hebrew texts. It is clearly a beautiful and highly stylized calligraphy, but as this midrash makes clear it is also part of the tradition handed down from generation to generation.
Read MoreOur Converts Are Precious
Jan 29, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Mishpatim
This midrash about an actual convert expands the scope of this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, which contemporary scholars call the “Covenant Collection” because of its numerous laws that follow and complement the Ten Commandments.
Read MoreThe Routine and the Profound
Jan 29, 2011 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Mishpatim
If Parashat Yitro, last week’s Torah reading, ends with the literal clap of God’s thunder, Parashat Mishpatim begins, perhaps not with a whimper, but certainly with at least a touch of anticlimax. From the heights of Yitro’s mystery, from the Decalogue and the Revelation, we are brought quite precipitously to the nitty-gritty of daily life, the laws of slave and slaveholder, the details of petty feuds, of accidental death and injury, of the goring ox, the fires in the vineyard, and the thief in the night.
Read MoreBearing Witness to Torah
Jan 22, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Yitro
Everything that precedes Sinai in the Torah’s narrative leads up to it. Everything that comes afterward—in the Torah, the Bible and Judaism as a whole—follows from the fact of Covenant and works out its consequences for Israel and the world. Your life and mine are shaped by the account presented in this week’s parashah. I would like to suggest two major ways in which that is so.
Read MoreOf God and Man
Jan 16, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Yitro
When I was little, my best friend and I shared a favorite game of Barbie dolls.
Read MoreProtective Paralysis
Jan 15, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Beshallah
Have we become like Pharaoh in the midrash above: both an oppressive captor and a powerless captive of his own psychological blindness?
Read MoreFilling Ourselves with Gratitude
Jan 15, 2011 By Lisa Gelber | Commentary | Beshallah
I’ve spent the past year watching in awe as my daughter has gobbled up her bottles of formula. From the time she arrived home from the hospital until today, she has drunk that bottle with vigor. Now she is older and can hold the bottle herself; when she’s finished, she tosses it to the side with a flourish, a ceremonial conclusion to her meal. The process has been and continues to be amazing, awe-inspiring, and, admittedly, somewhat entertaining.
Read MoreWhat’s Really Bad for the Jews?
Jan 8, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Bo
Apparently the wonders and miracles of the plagues were not enough to inspire all of the Israelites to want to leave Egypt. Moreover, according to this midrash, not all of the Israelites were slaves.
Read MoreIntent of a Question
Jan 8, 2011 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Bo | Pesah
Everyone knows that four children are mentioned in the Passover Haggadah and that one of them is the evil child. Probably fewer of us are aware that the question attributed to this child is a biblical verse found in this week’s Torah portion, “What do you mean by this rite (avodah)?” (Exod. 12:26).
Read MoreSpeaking Truth to Power
Jan 1, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Va'era
Might this midrash be intentionally ironic? Surely, the anonymous Sage who imagines this divine monologue would have acknowledged Abraham’s chutzpah in questioning God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Even if that encounter only amounts to an implicit critique of God’s ways, it sets the stage for one of the most important acts of Moses’s career.
Read MoreThe Secret of the 10 Plagues
Jan 1, 2011 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Va'era
Parashat Va-era, this week’s Torah portion, is full of drama, including most of the 10 plagues needed to bring the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. Moses has just been commissioned as God’s mouthpiece (in last week’s reading), designated to be the person to deliver the divine message of redemption to the people of Israel and to Pharaoh. Before the action, however, the parashah opens with God’s private, even intimate, declaration to Moses.
Read MoreA Deserved Punishment
Dec 25, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Shemot
The only thing juicier than a murder mystery is a murder mystery involving illicit sex. The midrashic imagination has woven a wonderful narrative to excuse Moses of the murder he commits in Exodus 2:12. It is a wonderful story from rabbinic literature that is worth sharing in and of itself.
Read MoreLeaving a Legacy
Dec 18, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Vayehi
What kind of legacy will we leave when we die? Much of our fear of dying is similar to Jacob’s, as described in this week’s Torah portion and further imagined in the midrash above. We worry that our ideals and our values will not survive among the next generation.
Read MoreQuestions of Life and Legacy
Dec 17, 2010 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Vayehi
This final parashah of Genesis bears a cryptic title: Va-yehi, “He (that is, Jacob) lived.” Well, of course he lived, and soon he will die, but how has he lived? What legacy does he bequeath? These are the questions that concern Va-yehi. What is the Torah’s final judgment of Jacob, a man who has wrestled, mourned and rejoiced, deceived and been deceived; a man who has been wounded and yet prevails, who has been humbled by his sons and yet manages to retain enough vigor and authority to command them until his dying breath? How has he lived?
Read MorePatience As a Biblical Virtue
Dec 11, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Vayiggash
If patience is a virtue, it is one that we have all but lost. Living in a point-and-click world, we have grown accustomed to instant gratification. We spend our days in a rush, multitasking so as not to waste a minute and our brains—as study after study has shown—are becoming addicted to the endorphin rush of the Internet. Fast food, instant messages, “on demand” TV shows—we want what we want and we want it now.
Read MoreThe Distraction of Bickering
Dec 11, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Vayiggash
In an age in which bickering about halakhah—its particulars and its generalities—has become the Achilles’ heel of the Jewish community, Rabbi Elazar’s words resound.
Read MoreThe True Story of Hanukkah
Dec 4, 2010 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Hanukkah
What is Hanukkah really about? There are several answers to a question like this, since the meaning of a holiday or ritual develops and grows over time. I’d like to point out a fascinating tension between two understandings of Hanukkah that becomes clear from examining two popular songs many of us sing after lighting the candles.
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