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Heavenly Justice
Feb 9, 2002 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Mishpatim
The other day, I was mentioning the wide impact of the books of Rabbi Harold Kushner, and the person I was talking to said, “Oh yes When Good Things Happen to Bad People.” We laughed, because the actual title of the book is When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It is the suffering of good people — or, at least, innocent people — that is so troubling and that accounts for the great popularity of books that address this topic.
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Seeing Revelation
Feb 9, 2002 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Mishpatim
The conclusion of this week’s Torah portion raises a profound question about the nature of Revelation. Was the revelation at Sinai an auditory or a visual experience? According to the book of Deuteronomy, the answer is quite clear: “You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds. The Lord spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape — nothing but a voice” (Deut. 4:11).
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Guilt of the Parents
Feb 2, 2002 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Yitro
Parashat Yitro is known for the appearance of the Ten Commandments, aseret ha—dibrot, the ten revealed “words” of God. While the majority of demands are straightforward and theologically tenable, a qualification in the second commandment has left generations of Jews wrestling with its implications. God declares, “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heaven above, or on the earth below . . . You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the Lord your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children (poked avon avot al banim), upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:4—6). How are we to understand this biblical concept of vicarious punishment?
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A Leadership Checklist
Feb 2, 2002 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Yitro
This week we read parashat Yitro, whose primary focus is the revelation at Sinai, and the Jewish people’s preparation for that unique event in the history of the Jewish people. Aside from several spiritual and ritual preparations, the creation of a effective system of leadership is an essential practical component of the readiness for this great event.
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Role of the Synagogue Regarding Newcomers
Jan 26, 2002 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Beshallah
Young Ms. Goldberg walks into the doors of a local synagogue.
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Turning to God in Celebration, Not Distress
Jan 26, 2002 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Beshallah | Pesah
Last winter, I visited the Ukraine with a number of other American rabbis. Our purpose was learn about the revival of Judaism in the former Soviet Union, and also to do some teaching in places where teachers don’t come that often.The day after arriving in Kiev, we made our way to Zvenogorodka, a town that used to be a shtetl but now has no Jewish neighborhood.
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Darkness As Threat & Haven
Jan 19, 2002 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Bo
In an emotional television interview, the last person rescued alive from the World Trade Center described her panic when she saw that night had arrived while she was still trapped beneath the wreckage. Once this woman realized that the light had faded from between the slabs of concrete and metal and that it was truly dark outside, she lost hope of ever being rescued.
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Fear and Power
Jan 19, 2002 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Bo
The final blow is about to fall. The tenth plague, the killing of the first–born of Egypt, is soon to occur. Yet in contrast to the unfolding of the first nine plagues, this one must wait a bit. Two things must happen first: the Israelites must ask their Egyptian neighbors to give them objects of gold and silver, and they must prepare for the first Passover. The Torah explains why the Egyptians would agree to give the Israelites what they request: “The Lord disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people. Moreover, Moses himself was much esteemed in the land of Egypt [literally, was seen as very great] among Pharaoh’s courtiers and among the people.” (Exodus 11:3)
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Being the Stranger
Jan 12, 2002 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Va'era
Parashat Vaera opens dramatically with God’s stirring proclamation to Moses: “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai , but I did not make myself known to them by my nameAdonai . I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their sojournings (megureihem ), where they had sojourned (garu )” (Exodus 6: 2-4). God then goes on to make a fourfold promise of redemption. Still, God’s introductory words are striking — linking this promise of redemption to the same promise made to Moses’ ancestors. It is the fulfillment of an ancestral promise. Yet, what is even more profound is the language of Exodus 6:4 — specifically the repetition of the root ger, sojourner.
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Forbidden Magic
Jan 12, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Va'era
In the Torah magic is forbidden–not because it is ineffective but because it does violence to the sovereignty of God. Exodus commands: “You shall not tolerate a sorceress” (22:17). Deuteronomy elaborates: Let no one be found among you . . . who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead” (18:10-11). The length of the list mirrors just how widespread the practice of magic was in the ancient Near East.
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Pharaoh’s Rebellious Daughter
Jan 5, 2002 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Shemot
How did she get away with it?! How did the daughter of Pharaoh manage to save the baby Moses, and raise him in the royal court, when her father had decreed that all Hebrew boys were to be killed?
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God’s Human Partner
Jan 5, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemot
At the end of their gripping biography of Abraham Joshua Heschel (unfortunately chronicling only the European phase of his life), Edward Kaplan and Samuel Dresner report that he arrived in New York on March 21, 1940 aboard the Lancastria. For a moment, after reading that tidbit, I wondered if uncannily the Schorsch family had come on the same ship. I dimly knew that the month of our arrival had been March 1940.
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A Model of Restraint
Dec 29, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Vayehi
The end of the Book of Genesis also marks the end of the stories of Jacob and Joseph. Though separated for many years, their life—courses moved together. Both were younger sons who gained primacy over older brothers. Jacob, in his last days, is determined to bequeath to his son, Joseph, directly that which he had gotten from his father Isaac stealthily. He begins by adopting Joseph’s two sons as his own, thus giving Joseph the double portion of inheritance that usually goes to the oldest son. Jacob then gives his testament to all his sons.
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Portraits of Grief
Dec 29, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayehi
At the end of a tumultuous life, Jacob dies what was once called “a good death.” Two things are granted him: the time to prepare for his death and the comfort of dying in the midst of family. In his 147th year, as his life forces ebb, he exacts a promise from Joseph not to bury him in Egypt, but in the ancestral burial ground in Hebron. He bestows on Joseph an extra portion over that of his brothers by elevating his sons, Ephraim and Menasseh, to a status equal to that of Joseph’s brothers. And he shares with each of his own sons portents of things to come, concluding with the repetition of his wish to be laid to rest in the cave of Machpelah. In short, Jacob dies unwracked by pain, with his wits about him and nothing left unsaid. The final verse of his biography conveys a sense of closure and completion: “When Jacob finished his instructions to his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathing his last, he was gathered to his people” (49:33).
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Free Will?
Dec 22, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Vayiggash
It is commonly accepted that Judaism teaches free choice. Human beings can choose their behaviors and are responsible for those choices. The source for this teaching is traced directly to the Torah:
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The Search for Torah
Dec 22, 2001 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Vayiggash
Imagine that you have just been reunited with your long-lost beloved child. For years, your days were full of grief as you mourned his tragic loss. Now you have not only learned of his miraculous existence, but you have also discovered his incredible success. His political and economic accomplishments will ensure the future safety and security of you and your entire family during a period of hardship and despair. After an emotional reunion, your wildly successful son brings you to meet his boss, the ruler of the nation. When the king asks you how you are doing, what do you say?
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Lighting the Way
Dec 15, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Hanukkah
The traditional greeting for Hanukkah, Hag Urim Sameah, Happy Festival of Lights, speaks to the essence of our holiday observance — urim — which is the plural of the Hebrew ‘or’ meaning light. Indeed, rabbinic commentary underscores this plurality of light in alluding to three different and complementary sources of light: a light of creation, a light of revelation, and a light of redemption.
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The Fortitude of the Jewish Soul
Dec 15, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
This year I will not be celebrating Hanukkah at home. I’m off to Israel on December 6, and will not be back till the seventh day of the festival, just in time to light a full complement of eight candles on the last night in the midst of family. It is hard to capture the beauty of this holiday or any other on your own. Neither synagogue nor prayer begins to exhaust the repertoire of ritual that enlivens the distinctive character of every Jewish holy day. The home is the great aquifer of our Judaism, indispensable but undervalued.
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The Refuge of Judaism
Dec 8, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayeshev | Hanukkah
In his richly thoughtful one-volume History of the Jews in Modern Times, Professor Lloyd P. Gartner observes that “few Jews in the world of 1950 lived in the city or country where their grandparents had lived in 1880” (p. 213). Like the rest of the world, Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were on the move, to burgeoning cities in the countries where they lived or to lands abroad that beckoned with opportunity. By 1915, the Jewish population in the United States had mushroomed from 280,000 to 3,197,000.
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Legislating Intimacy
Dec 1, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayishlah
Judaism is not an ascetic religion. It makes no virtue of mortifying the flesh. At the end of Shabbat, a day devoted to the renewal of body and soul, we ask God not only to forgive our sins, but also to increase the number of our children and our financial assets.
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