![The Perils of Leadership](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/david_hoffman-300x300.jpg)
The Perils of Leadership
Jul 2, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Hukkat
Great leadership is about successfully orchestrating change. Whether within organizations, communities, or other social systems, leadership involves developing a vision of the future and implementing strategies to achieve this vision. Exercising leadership means motivating and inspiring people to change habits, attitudes, and values that hold them back from reaching their goals.
Read More![Identities of Choice](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/treu_abigail_2.jpg)
Identities of Choice
Jul 2, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Naso
We live in an age in which we are all Jews by Choice. Whether born to Jewish parents or not, in 21st-century America our identities are a matter of our own selection.
Read More![Sympathy for Korah](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/arnie_eisen-300x300.jpg)
Sympathy for Korah
Jun 25, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Korah
I have a great deal of sympathy for Korah and his rebel faction, despite the fact that they made life difficult for Moses, Aaron, and God.
Read More![The Deeper Meaning of Sacredness](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
The Deeper Meaning of Sacredness
Jun 25, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Korah
The antagonist of this week’s Torah portion rises and falls, according to the midrash above, when the logical fallacies in his argument reveal his true intentions. Korah, leading a revolt against Moses and Aaron, challenges the brothers’ leadership as detached from the Israelite people.
Read More![Israel, Evil Speech, and the Spies](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/eliezer_diamond-300x300.jpg)
Israel, Evil Speech, and the Spies
Jun 18, 2011 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
The other scouts had not in fact stated that it was impossible to defeat the peoples of Canaan, yet Caleb seems to have understood this as being the import of their words. Why so?
Read More![Holding On to Torah](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/treu_abigail_2.jpg)
Holding On to Torah
Jun 18, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Shelah Lekha
The metaphor is wonderful: the man at sea is Israel, grasping the tzitzit, with God the Captain of the ship stretching out a hand, holding the other end of the lifeline. As with all metaphors, it is not to be taken literally.
Read More![“Lights, Camera, Action!”](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/miller__deborah-300x300.jpg)
“Lights, Camera, Action!”
Jun 11, 2011 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
We’ve all heard the adage about the opera not being over until the fat lady sings. But the opera doesn’t begin, at least not at the Metropolitan Opera, until the chandeliers go up. The performance starts even before the curtain opens, as the twinkling crystal chandeliers ascend to the ceiling. The stage has been set for something illuminating, magical, and transcendent. We are invited to enter into an alternate realm that whisks us away from the finite and ordinary world we inhabit.
Read More![The Idolatry of Stasis](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
The Idolatry of Stasis
Jun 11, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Beha'alotekha
Only in Hebrew leap years does Shavu’ot coincide with Parashat Beha’alotekha, but every day we are faced with the challenges that this midrash addresses.
Read More![How We Build Character](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/marjorie_lehman_900_sq-300x300.jpg)
How We Build Character
Jun 4, 2011 By Marjorie Lehman | Commentary | Naso
Parashat Naso begins with the appointment of the Levite families of Gershon and Merari to take care of the Mishkan, the Israelites’ portable sanctuary in the desert. While Aaron and his family were given the responsibility of overseeing the actual service of God in the Mishkan, the descendants of Gershon and Merari were defined as mere helpers, charged with the role of caring for the structure of the Mishkan, its cloths, its equipment, its posts and their sockets, its planks, pegs, and furnishings. I have always wondered—why did God divide up the care of the Mishkan in this way?
Read More![The Poetry of Sinai](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
The Poetry of Sinai
May 27, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Bemidbar
I rarely encounter texts like the midrash above that so completely challenge static notions about Torah.
Read More![Our Sacred Partnerships](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mychal_springer_sq_2-300x300.jpg)
Our Sacred Partnerships
May 27, 2011 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Bemidbar
In this week’s Torah and haftarah portions, the specter of rupture looms repeatedly. First, we are reminded of the deaths of Aaron’s two older sons, Nadav and Avihu. Similarly, our parashah recounts the undoing of the sacred place held by the firstborn sons, chosen to be dedicated to God when they were saved from the 10th plague, the plague of the slaying of the firstborns. Finally, in the haftarah, Hosea tells the story of Israel the Unfaithful, through the vehicle of Gomer, his harlot-wife.
Read More![The Ancestral Roots of our Morals](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/treu_abigail_2.jpg)
The Ancestral Roots of our Morals
May 21, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Vayikra
How wonderful to derive a great lesson from such a simple turn of phrase.
Read More![Blessing From the Inside Out](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/david_hoffman-300x300.jpg)
Blessing From the Inside Out
May 21, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Behukkotai
One of the claims that seems to have been made at different moments in my Jewish education is that Judaism concerns itself with what a person does in the world and not with what a person thinks. The Torah demands we pursue a life rightly lived over beliefs rightly held. This argument underscores that the project of Torah is concerned with our behavior and not our internal life.
Read More![Man’s Plans vs. God’s Plans](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/treu_abigail_2.jpg)
Man’s Plans vs. God’s Plans
May 20, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Behukkotai
I have such good intentions when I start off my day or my week.
Read More![Freeing Today’s Slaves](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/danny_nevins-300x300.jpg)
Freeing Today’s Slaves
May 13, 2011 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Behar
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” These words from our parashah (Leviticus 25:10) are famously inscribed upon the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and they have resounded as a message of hope for the oppressed throughout the world. Yet our parashah also contains a darker message that endorses slavery, just as America has paired proclamations of liberty with cruel practices of slavery and discrimination throughout its history. In the same chapter of Leviticus, we read that non-Israelite residents of the land may be acquired as permanent slaves, and may be kept “as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property for all time.”
Read More![We Are All Borrowers](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
We Are All Borrowers
May 13, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Behar
I love discovering rabbinic texts like the one above that make such radical claims about Torah and God in general or about particular laws like tzedakah (righteous giving), one subject at the heart of this week’s Torah portion.
Read More![Bringing Compassion into Our Lives](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
Bringing Compassion into Our Lives
May 7, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Emor
Late this past Sunday night, Erev Yom HaSho’ah (the Eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day), I heard the news that Osama bin Laden was dead, that the most infamous nemesis of the United States since Hitler and Stalin had been killed in an American military operation to capture him. While watching the television reports of celebrations outside the White House and near Ground Zero, I felt mixed emotions: relief for the end of the manhunt; elation over the retribution for innocent lives lost; and discomfort with my pride in the violent end of another human life, even one as murderous as this adversary’s was.
Read More![The Cycles of Nature](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/treu_abigail_2.jpg)
The Cycles of Nature
May 7, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Emor
A midrash for any attorney or accountant to love, the last line of which already rings with the oy vey iz mir tone which has come down to us via Tevye and Seinfeld as a quintessentially Jewish mode of wry humor.
Read More![Loving in God’s Image](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/shugerman_andy_2.jpg)
Loving in God’s Image
Apr 30, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Kedoshim
At numerous points in Jewish history, rabbis and scholars have addressed the question of what tenet or observance represents the heart of Judaism. Seldom, however, have our teachers argued the converse about a biblical text that ought to be eliminated from the canon.
Read More![The Origins of a Nation](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/wolf__marc__2_2004-300x300.jpg)
The Origins of a Nation
Apr 23, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Pesah
As we set our tables and prepare for our seders, we cannot help but hear the echoes of our journey from persecution to freedom amplified in the headlines. Our holiday of Hodesh Ha’aviv—the “Month of the Spring”—comes at a time when the ripple effects of what has been dubbed the Arab Spring are just beginning to be felt.
Read MoreSUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS
Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.