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Leadership Through “Contraction”

May 26, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bemidbar

The fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, opens eleven months after the revelation at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:1) and one month after the completion of the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:17). It resumes the story line interrupted by Leviticus, which is almost entirely devoid of narrative content. What follows is a series of gripping events that punctuate and account for an unexpected forty–year trek through the wilderness, culminating on the steppes of Moab east of the Jordan River just prior to Moses’ death. Hence, the Hebrew name of the book Bemidbar–In the Wilderness, comes closer to capturing the sweep of the narrative.

Kindling the Light of Torah

May 12, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor

This past week the JTS community gathered together to celebrate the completion of the Kripke Tower. This magnificent tower blesses JTS with more classroom space, a state–of–the–art music studio and language lab, and a video conferencing center which will serve the needs of students, faculty and staff. Even the entryway conveys a message of mutuality, as light from outside filters through the glass breezeway, while light from the interior courtyard reflects back out to the street. One final detail of architectural insight will crown the Kripke Tower when it is officially dedicated in just under two weeks. As JTS enhances its capacity to spread its message of Torah and mitzvot throughout the Jewish world, an everlasting light (ner tamid) will be lit at the top of the tower guarding over JTS.

Mitzvah vs. Mitzvah

May 5, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim

Sometimes in the Biblical text, the first half and second half of a verse seem to be talking past each other. The first half addresses one commandment or concept, and the second half seems to go off on a tangent. This strange type of juxtaposition appears a number of times in K’doshim , the second half of our double portion for the week.

Purifying Waters?

Apr 28, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

“These are the verses that try men’s souls.” Or better, these are the verses that pain the souls of numbers of serious Jewish women. I refer to Leviticus 12:2—5 in Parshat Tazri·a, and Leviticus 15:19—24 in Parshat Metzora. The first verses describe the laws regarding the days of a woman’s “uncleanness” (tum’ah) after giving birth to a child, which last twice as long if she gives birth to a female child. The second verses refer to the “impurity” of a menstruating woman (niddah). Anything she lies on or sits on becomes “unclean,” and any man who has sexual relations with her also becomes “unclean.” While almost all of the Torah’s impurity laws became obsolete after the destruction of the Temple, these laws, regarding postpartum and menstruating women, remain on the books.

Yikzkor: The Order of Giving

Synagogue attendance always swells at Yizkor. No matter how attenuated our sense of being Jewish, we are drawn back for a moment to offer a prayer (“may God remember”) in memory of those we have loved and lost. The observance ofYahrzeit and Yizkor remains hallowed. The proximity of death still fills us with reverence if not foreboding.

Elijah at the Seder Table

Apr 7, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav

The Shabbat just prior to Passover is known as the Great Sabbath, Shabbat ha-Gadol.

On Rebuilding the Temple

Apr 3, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Terumah

With this week’s parasha we take up the manner in which ancient Israel was to worship God. The cult bespeaks the effort to institutionalize the peak experience of Sinai. How was an echo of the awesome nearness of God which marked Sinai to be perpetuated far from it in the depth of the ordinary? What was the nature of the instrument that would carry Sinai into the world? The model society envisioned by the Torah would not long endure without a ritual link to the source of its inspiration. Nothing confirms just how vital the cult was than the amount of attention paid to it by Scripture. For the rest of the book of Exodus and through the books of Leviticus and Numbers which are to follow, we shall be largely concerned with matters relating to the cult.

The Psychology of Sacrifice

Mar 31, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Vayikra

The sacrificial order laid out in the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Leviticus may seem alien to modern readers, but in its textual organization and minutiae of ritual, it reflects a deep psychological understanding of the nature of error and atonement in public and private life.

How Close Is God?

Feb 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa

From his first encounter with God at the burning bush, Moses displayed a penchant for deep knowledge. He needed to comprehend God before he was ready to face Israel and Pharaoh. He demanded to know God’s name, the key to God’s being. This week again, after the debacle of the Golden Calf, Moses returns for more illumination. To be chosen requires understanding the chooser.

A New Conception of God

Feb 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro

My father had a mind that reveled in philosophy. Maimonides, Spinoza and Kant were his lifelong companions. As a kid absorbed by sports, I knew their names almost as well as those of Sid Luckman and Joe DiMaggio, though their stats were harder to come by. I often saw my father pore over an old edition of Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s 13^th century Hebrew translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, written in Arabic. And in 1960 he brought a copy of Solomon Munk’s mid-19th-century French translation based on the Arabic original which Munk had discovered.

The Folly of Faith in Military Strength

Feb 10, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beshallah

Though separated by centuries, this week’s parasha and haftara overlap thematically. In each case, ancient Israel, aided by the forces of nature, prevails over a mighty enemy equipped with the most fearsome weapon of the day, the chariot. Pharaoh pursues the horde of Israelites departing Egypt with every chariot at his command, including his elite corps of 600. Drawn by two horses, each one of these swift vehicles was manned by a driver, warrior and officer. Clearly, Pharaoh intended to cow his just freed slaves into returning to Egypt without a struggle (Exodus 14:6-7).

Angel Analysis

Feb 3, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

The Passover seder song, Had Gadya, is sung to a merry little tune that belies the violent content. Why this song is sung at Passover is the subject of varying interpretations, but one connection seems clear: malakh ha-mavet, the angel of death. After all wasn’t it the angel of death that slew the first-born of Egypt? Actually, it was not.

Our Ancestors in Egypt

Jan 27, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayera

We are accustomed to thinking of our ancestors in Egypt as people of virtue and character. Neither in times of prosperity nor persecution did they abandon the unconventional faith of their progenitors. It is a view that we owe to the Passover Haggadah, which each year affirms for us at the Seder that despite the long sojourn in a foreign land, the identity of our ancestors remained undiluted. The midrash that constitutes the form in which we narrate the story of the Exodus to our children, expounds the phrase, “and there [in Egypt] he became a nation (Deuteronomy 26:5),” as referring to Jewish distinctiveness. The underlying force of the Hebrew word for nation, “goy,” denotes a national group bearing its own identity. In other words, as the descendants of Jacob grew in number, their undiminished sense of apartness welded them into a cohesive and visible minority. The world-class civilization of Egypt did not swallow them through assimilation.

Learning From a Gored Ox

Jan 24, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Mishpatim | Shabbat Shekalim

My comment this week will focus on a single verse that sheds light on a vast and contentious subject. Judaism has long been condemned for harboring traces of a double standard, that is, treating insiders more favorably than outsiders. I have no intention of denying the evidence or taking refuge in the universality of the phenomenon. Rather, I wish to show how Judaism struggled to transcend the pattern and bring its legal practice into sync with its theology. It is, after all, a postulate of the creation story that all members of the human family bear the stamp of God’s image.

Heroic Women

Jan 20, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Shemot

In first few chapters of Exodus, the Egyptian Pharaoh enacts harsh decrees to curtail the fertility and fecundity of the Jewish people (Exodus1:9), “pen yirbeh” – lest the Jews multiply. His increasingly genocidal decrees are thwarted by increasingly heroic women. Last, and perhaps most daring of all, is Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopts the young foundling Moses right under her father’s nose, even though she knows that all Egyptians have been commanded to kill any male Jewish baby.

Children’s Blessings

Jan 13, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Vayehi

There’s a beautiful custom the Jewish people have on Friday evenings, of blessing our children before making kiddush. We place our hands on the head of each child, and for boys we say, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.” For girls we say “May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.” And for all the children we add the Priestly Blessing which asks for God’s protection, blessing, and grace. As the mother of a much-longed-for child, I know the power of feeling that sweet child’s head under my fingers as I bless him and thank God for his existence in my life. I imagine that parents in many centuries before me have had the same depth of feeling as they paused each Shabbat to touch each child, bless him or her, and to thank God for the miracle in their hands.

Between Teshuva and Repentance

Jan 6, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash

The origin of words is often a good indicator of their deeper meaning. This is surely the case with the well-known Hebrew word “teshuvah,” often rendered in English as penitence or repentance. Yet the etymology of each term in this pairing is decidedly different and reminds us of what is always lost in translation. Both English words derive from a Latin root meaning “to regret,” whereas the Hebrew term comes from the root “to return.” The contrast is pronounced: etymologically, the English concept stresses a state of mind, the Hebrew, an action to be taken.

Revelation or Interpretation?

Dec 30, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz

The Rabbis tend to curb the revelatory role of dreams. As a vehicle of extrasensory perception, they would contend, dreams tell us more about what’s on our mind than on God’s. In the early third century, R. Yonatan, a first generation Palestinian Amora, delivered an opinion worthy of Freud: “Dreams convey to us only that which we are already thinking about during the day.” He based himself on a careful reading of the experience of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian conqueror of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. According to the book of Daniel, the king, like most of us, had forgotten his dream by the time he awoke. But greatly agitated by its effect, he demanded of the sages of his realm to recover the dream and then interpret it, a task which threw them into consternation. The exiled Jewish courtier, Daniel, however, with God’s help, met the challenge.

“Like Father, Like Son.”

Dec 23, 2000 By David-Seth Kirshner | Commentary | Vayeshev

My eight-year-old nephew, Caleb, is a young comedian with a natural wit about him. At family gatherings he sends his uncles and aunts, cousins and grandparents into fits of side-splitting laughter. Caleb’s personality, warmth and outlook can earn the trust and smile of a complete stranger.

The Meaning of Benjamin’s Name

Dec 16, 2000 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Vayishlah

Child-raising in today’s Jewish America is serious business. The prime virtue is preparation. The drive to be prepared reaches its climax in the test preparation industry. All responsible parents must ensure that their children are thoroughly prepped for the standardized tests that open the doors to good schools and, ultimately, good jobs. Especially diligent parents don’t wait until high school. The drive to organize everything for a child in advance extends not only to infancy but to the prenatal period. It is not uncommon for parents to find out the gender of the fetus, schedule a caesarian section on a particular day, and, if a boy is expected, reserve a mohel and a caterer. Naturally, these parents have already selected a name for the to-be-born child.

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