Continuing Our Ancestors’ Debate with God

Continuing Our Ancestors’ Debate with God

Mar 9, 2007 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Ki Tissa

Location, location, location! That’s not only a mantra in real estate but is also, as we shall see, an essential component in understanding some key elements of Ki Tissa, this week’s Torah reading.

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Clothing Without and Within

Clothing Without and Within

Mar 3, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tetzavveh | Purim

Clothing offers keen insight in two complementary directions. First, the raiment one wears reveals one’s personality. While a neat, well fitting suit may convey a sense of professionalism and conservatism, jeans and a tie-dyed shirt reflect a casual, relaxed, and liberal sense of self. And just as clothing offers an allusion inward, so, too, does it give us a sense of what is transpiring around us. A kittel (a white ritual robe worn at liminal moments) or tallit (prayer shawl) signals a moment of prayerful reflection; tuxedos and gowns tip us off to a wedding reception; and black garments often represent mourning. Thus, clothing is a mark of the internal as well as the external.

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“The More the Merrier?”

“The More the Merrier?”

Feb 24, 2007 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Terumah

We have all heard and used the expression, “the more the merrier.”

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The Ethereal and the Material

The Ethereal and the Material

Feb 17, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Mishpatim

Parashat Mishpatim records the pinnacle of closeness between God and people. After the Ten Commandments (last week) and a catalogue of other civil and ethical laws, Moses affirms the covenant by sacrificing animals and dashing their blood against an altar. “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadav and Avihu (two of Aaron’s sons) and seventy elders of Israel ascended; and they saw the God of Israel; under his feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity.” (Exodus 24:9—10). What do the people do immediately after experiencing this sublime revelation? They head for the bagels and whitefish!

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The One Law of the Torah

The One Law of the Torah

Feb 17, 2007 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Mishpatim

Our parashah this week is called “Mishpatim” or laws.

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Finding Balance

Finding Balance

Feb 10, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Yitro

Negotiating personal and professional boundaries is one of the greatest challenges facing working individuals today. We live in a world that prizes productivity over patience and boundless devotion over definitive limits. Store hours lengthen, the banking week extends, and slowly work overtakes one’s life. Given this reality, Judaism is countercultural. It is a system of belief that places boundaries on one’s behavior. Indeed, eating, sex, and economic pursuits are all limited by sacred structures (kashrut, taharat ha–mishpaha [laws of family purity], and Shabbat, respectively). What is striking is that too often, we fail to recognize the need to set limits to our behaviors; classically, it takes an outsider to focus our attention toward constructive criticism.

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The Challenges of Leadership

The Challenges of Leadership

Feb 10, 2007 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Yitro

The paradigms of leadership that emerge from the Bible teach us much about the human quotient in leadership.

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When to Give

When to Give

Feb 4, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Terumah

In many ways, Parashat T’rumah represents a thematic transition from engaging biblical narrative to technical description and detail. As the parashah opens, we become privy to the details of the Tabernacle and its appurtenances. And while we are initially dazzled by the vibrant colors and materials, the details become overwhelming. Our eyes glaze over, and it is difficult for the reader to engage. Sensing this challenge to his congregants, the classical fifteenth-century bible commentator Abarbanel opened his treatise on this parashah with an important word of encouragement.

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Finding the Strength to Face the Unknown

Finding the Strength to Face the Unknown

Feb 3, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Beshallah

Parashat Beshallah witnesses the triumphant redemption.

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A Personal Relationship to Torah

A Personal Relationship to Torah

Feb 3, 2007 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Beshallah

In his parashah commentary several weeks ago on the beginning of the book of Exodus, our Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen shared what I consider one of my favorite texts.

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Pesah Three Ways

Pesah Three Ways

Jan 27, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

Unambiguous ambiguity is the hallmark of philology, the study of words. The deeper one delves into the meaning of a given word, the more that particular word yields to shades of meaning. This week’s Torah reading, Parashat Bo, presents us with one such example of multilayered understandings and readings. As the Children of Israel depart from Egypt, God issues the first commandment to the Israelites: “This month [Nisan] will mark for you the beginning of the months.” (Exodus 12:2). How are the Israelites to mark this new month of Nisan? On the tenth day of the month, the Israelites are commanded to select a lamb which will serve as the Pesah offering to God. What precisely is the meaning of Pesah?

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Free Will and Dental Care

Free Will and Dental Care

Jan 26, 2007 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Bo

After years of neglect and in response to the prodding of my dentist, I have undertaken a much more rigorous program of care for my teeth.

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Creatures of Habit

Creatures of Habit

Jan 20, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Va'era

Why did God “harden Pharaoh’s heart”? To what extent was God acting justly or fairly? How may we understand God’s gesture in light of free choice? Parashat Va-era presents a classic challenge to our modern sensibilities. Yet ours is not the first generation to ask these questions.

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Conditioning Our Hearts

Conditioning Our Hearts

Jan 20, 2007 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Va'era

In this week’s parashah, as our narrative draws ever closer to the climactic Exodus from Egypt, we feel the drama building.

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God’s Nomenclature

God’s Nomenclature

Jan 13, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shemot

The act of “naming” is a God–like act that speaks to relationship and power.

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Guided by the Covenant

Guided by the Covenant

Jan 12, 2007 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shemot

There is a wonderful midrash in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana that suggests a profound relationship between the arrival of the manna described in Parashat Be’shallah and the giving of the Ten Commandments recounted in the following parashah, Yitro. Just as the manna tasted different to each and every Israelite, Rabbi Yosi teaches, so each was enabled according to his or her particular capacity to hear the Divine Word differently at Sinai (12:25).

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Returning to Joseph’s Pit

Returning to Joseph’s Pit

Jan 6, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayehi

On the surface, Parashat Va–y’hi, the concluding Torah reading of both Genesis and the Joseph narrative, is about death. Both Jacob and Joseph come to their respective ends; and the haftarah that we read turns to the final hours of King David’s life. And although this parashah ostensibly throws us a “curve ball,” the essence of this reading is found in the title, va–y’hi, meaning and “he (Jacob) lived.” Va–y’hi is more about life, than it is about death.

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Memorials of Healing

Memorials of Healing

Jan 6, 2007 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayehi

On the surface, Parashat Vayehi, the concluding Torah reading of both Genesis and the Joseph narrative, is about death.

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Words that Come from the Heart

Words that Come from the Heart

Dec 30, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayiggash

Parashat Va–yiggash leads us to the dramatic conclusion of the Joseph narrative, as the protagonist reveals his identity to his estranged brothers. Out of a profound and real fear of losing another brother, Judah makes a stirring appeal to Joseph. As Joseph imbibes the emotional outpouring from Judah, he cannot restrain himself from a similar outpouring. The Rabbis teach that “words that come from the heart, go to the heart.”

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A Question of Translation

A Question of Translation

Dec 30, 2006 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Vayiggash

Parashat Vayiggash (or, as it is sometimes known in Hebrew school circles, “parashat omigosh”) serves as the denouement of the “Tale of Joseph and His Brothers.”

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