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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pagePreparing to Hear
Jan 8, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Va'era
Last week’s parashah, Sh’mot, closes on a discouraging note. Having remained loyal to the command of God, Moses and Aaron stand before Pharaoh conveying the word of God, “Let My people go…” In rage and defiance, Pharaoh not only denies the request, but further embitters the lives of the Israelites as he refuses to provide straw for the slaves. They must now break their backs gathering materials to make the same quota of bricks as before. Though lifted by a moment of hope upon hearing that God had taken note of their plight, the Israelites now become impatient and enraged, even skeptical of Moses’ message. After being reproached by a group of Israelites, Moses turns to God asks candidly, “Why did You bring harm upon this people?” This week’s parashah, Parashat Va–era, opens in a moment of prophetic frustration and divine assurance.
Read MoreZebulun, Issachar and the Importance of Jewish Education
Dec 25, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayehi
The enterprise of Jewish education, on which the future of the Jewish people rests, has always been a partnership between educators and patrons.
Read MoreHereafter and Here Now
Dec 25, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayehi
Eschatology, a branch of theological inquiry that focuses on the end of days and the afterlife, has become an obsession of popular culture. While discussions about eschatology allow for the imagination to soar, they leave us with the challenging task of imagining the unimaginable. What will happen at the end of days? And more immediately, how does Judaism relate to what happens after this life?
Cultivating an Ethic of Responsibility
Dec 18, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash
Jewish history unfolds as a dialectic between exile and homeland.
Read MoreWhat’s in a Name
Dec 11, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Miketz
Names and titles speak to our very essence. This truism becomes all the more clear as we explore Parashat Miketz.
Read MoreSources of Comfort
Dec 10, 2004 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Vayehi
Some things, it seems, are not just coincidences. As I write these words, I am still in the sheloshim – the 30 day mourning period – for my 38-year-old brother Jonathan, who died suddenly of a massive heart attack. And our parasha deals with the end of the life of Jacob, who, though he lived one hundred and forty-seven years, described his “years of sojourn” on earth as “few and hard.” (Genesis 47:9)
Read MoreVarieties of Devotion
Dec 4, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayeshev
This past week, my two-and-a-half year old granddaughter spotted me one morning davening by the window in our living room. She recognized the telltale signs of the act, my tallit and tefillin. Spontaneously, she announced her intention to daven also, took herself over to the drawer where we keep some old JTS benchers (small grace books), removed one, and proceeded to strut about with the bencher in her face. Later, I found the bencher on the floor in another room, but for a few tender moments at least, I had a precious soul mate in greeting God that morning.
Read MorePermanence in a Land of Impermanence
Dec 4, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayeshev
The opening verse of this week’s parashah begins the Joseph narrative which will carry us to the conclusion of Genesis. Even more significant, these opening words highlight an issue at the heart of Jewish history and Jewish life. In Genesis 37:1 we read, “Jacob settled (va-yeishev) in the land of his father’s sojournings (megurei aviv), in the land of Canaan.” The Hebrew word va-yeishev means ‘he settled’; it is a verb that speaks to a sense of rootedness and permanence. On the other hand, a few words later, we encounter the Hebrew megurei meaning sojournings – a word that at its root (gar) echoes strangeness and impermanence.
Conversion: Then and Now
Nov 27, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayishlah
During my recent visit to Israel, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision of great import on the subject of conversion.
Read MoreRebecca’s Veil of Independence
Nov 22, 2004 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
In a traditional Jewish wedding, there is a beautiful and dramatic ceremony before the chuppah known as the “bedeken” (Yiddish for “veiling”). At this celebratory moment, a groom is escorted with song and dance to meet his bride as he lowers the veil over her face. One popular explanation for the custom of bedeken is that the groom is “checking” (from the Hebrew root b-d-k) to make sure that he is marrying the correct woman. Jacob was tricked by Laban into marrying Leah, instead of Rachel, because she was masked behind a veil. However, the origin of the bedeken, “veiling,” ceremony is found in this week’s Torah portion.
Read MoreThe Evolution of Judaism’s Moral Conscience
Nov 20, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
Why does Jacob abandon the security of his parents home in Beer-sheba?
Read MoreDrinking the Waters of Torah
Nov 13, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Toledot
In rabbinic parlance, water stands for Torah.
Read More“A Righteous Person Knows the Needs of His Beast.”
Nov 6, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
This week’s parashah presents us with the first instance of a dating service.
Read MoreThe Past Leading to the Present
Oct 30, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayera
The unusual Hebrew phrase “lekh lekha” occurs only twice in the entire Tanakh: at the beginning of last week’s parasha when God instructs Abraham to leave Haran, and this week, when God asks him to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice (Genesis 12:1; 22:2).
Read MoreThe Ease of Redemption
Oct 25, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yom Kippur
The redemption of the world is easier than you think. It starts with you and me.
Read MoreAbraham: Knight of Many Faiths
Oct 23, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
It is hard to reconcile the glaring gap between promise and fulfillment in the story of Abraham.
Read MoreThe Flood and Creation
Oct 16, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Noah
Midrashim often draw big ideas from the smallest of linguistic anomalies.
Read MoreWhat Is a Sukkah, Really?
Sep 30, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
During the festival of Sukkot in 1974, while on sabbatical in Israel, the Schorsch family took a trip to Sharm El Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.
Read MoreA Nation of Priests
Sep 25, 2004 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Yom Kippur
By Mallory Probert (DS ’05)
This is the way of summer. The earth spins more slowly. Food tastes better. Friends are more engaging. We rediscover the joy of taking afternoon naps during the middle of the week. But then September comes, and it’s dearth of community activities. Perhaps this is the hidden wisdom behind the timing of the Days of Awe – for they occur precisely at the same time as our secular lives resume their frantic pace.
Read MoreA World Without Teshuvah
Sep 18, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
The Torah is largely a series of legal texts set in a narrative context. It is not replete with outbursts of poetry. Our poetic sensibility seeks satisfaction elsewhere in the Tanakh – in the passion of the prophets, or the poignancy of the psalmist, or the protest of Job, or in the sensuousness of the Song of Songs. The Torah touches only some of our senses. And yet, it closes in a great poetic flourish. As Moses nears his end, he switches from didactic prose to incandescent poetry.
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