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Lost Property and Lost Souls
Sep 1, 2001 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
It is easy to get lost amid the lengthy list of laws in this week’s Torah portion. In this way, parashat Ki Tetse represents many of our experiences with Jewish learning. Where do I begin? There is so much here to learn! In fact, serious Jewish learning has traditionally begun with a focus on one of the laws found in this week’s parashah.
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Searching for God
Aug 18, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Re'eh
Spirituality has become the romantic goal of individuals thirsting in pursuit of deeper religious meaning. And while spirituality means something different to everyone, much of the American Jewish community has come to associate the pursuit of spirituality with the study of our mystical tradition, kabbalah. Kabbalah, it is believed, offers a direct and intimate pathway to God. So, not surprisingly, kabbalah centers (many of them peddling inauthentic and simplistic versions of the true kabbalistic tradition) have sprung up in Jewish communities across the country – attracting large numbers of affiliated as well as non-affiliated Jews, significant numbers of non-Jews, and a handful of superstars like Madonna. What accounts for the popularity of kabbalah today? It is the inviting promise of immediate spiritual fulfillment and unification with a tangible, accessible divinity that attracts such large numbers. What many of these people fail to understand is that according to the sages, kabbalah is one of the final stages of a lifetime devoted to Jewish learning, not the entry point.
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The Love of Israel
Aug 11, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Eikev
I cannot read certain verses from Parashat Ekev dispassionately this year. Not only is the prose of the Torah magnificently beautiful (as it is in much of Deuteronomy), but I have recently returned from a two week visit to Israel, and have personally witnessed almost all the bounties mentioned in these verses. My husband, 2–year old son, brother (a first–time visitor) and I walked through the lushness of Tel Dan in the north, and couldn’t help but be struck by the abundant flow of cool, clear water – even in the middle of July, and even at a time when Israel is suffering a major water shortage. In the dry, Negev desert, we observed the deep gorges which swell with water during the winter season. We saw countless date palm trees (the source of biblical “honey”), banana trees and olive trees in different parts of the country. We observed the green figs growing on the fig trees, and the vines being readied for the growth of grapes. We saw the fields which had been harvested for wheat, and we floated in the mineral rich Dead Sea. Living in a time where exaggeration and hyperbole run rampant, it was wonderful to see that the bountiful promises of the Torah about the Land of Israel are as true today as they were thousands of years ago.
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Moses and the Code of the Samurai
Aug 4, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
The code of the samurai is strict. A warrior who fails his lord is expected to perform seppuku, a ritual suicide better known outside Japan as hara-kiri. His death is atonement for the dishonor that his failure has caused. In modern Japan, this ultimate sacrifice is rarely offered, but personal accountability for failure remains a virtue. However, in many cases, the direction in which responsibility flows is reversed: a superior will accept punishment because of the misdeeds of a subordinate.
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Memory’s Comfort
Jul 28, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
Next week I will commemorate Tishah B’Av at Camp Ramah. Many a summer finds me vacationing in Vermont when the fast day comes. My isolation makes its observance doubly difficult. Judaism requires community. Our religious reserves quickly run dry when we go it alone. The presence of a minyan united by ritual not only generates an atmosphere of sanctity, it also inspires our own participation.
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Purifying Our Technology
Jul 21, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
Mattot-Mas’ei, which we read this week, portrays the final months of the Israelites’ wandering in the desert, and the skirmishes which would presage their conquest of the land of Canaan. In the previous chapters, the Israelites had had trouble with the Midianites- a nation which posed not a military, but a cultural threat. They attacked Israel not on the battlefield, but with temptation to idolatry and sexual impropriety. In this week’s reading, God commands the Israelites to go to war against them, and the Israelite troops return from battle bearing the spoils of war – human captives, animals, precious metals and household items. Moses, the aged leader, and Eleazar, the new high priest, greet the returning troops with instructions for how to dispose of the spoils.
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Linguistic Fossils
Jul 14, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas
Fossils come in different forms. Those buried in the earth have vastly expanded our conception of time and the evolution of life. Those imbedded in the language we speak are closer to our daily experience and barely noticed. Despite the change in world view, these linguistic fossils persist because they are concrete, vivid and emotionally satisfying. Thus a current TV sitcom about a happily married minister with seven children can sport the name Seventh Heaven, though no one holds any longer the medieval notion that the earth sits at the center of a cosmos surrounded by seven firmaments. Two other examples of idioms that have outlasted their origins: “To placate the gods” we would be ready to go to “the ends of the earth.”
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“Judge Not…”
Jul 7, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Balak
How is our behavior judged by others? What determines whether our actions are seen as positive and appropriate, or as negative and improper?
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The Centrality of Torah Study
Jun 30, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hukkat
For the Rabbis, the words of Torah are infinitely plastic because they are infinitely meaningful. If God be infinite, so is God’s language. Via creative interpretation, midrash, the Rabbis dismantle and reassemble individual words, phrases and verses to pour new meanings into old vessels, turning a static text into one that is ever in formation.
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Jewish Authority
Jun 23, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah
During the past few months, there has been a changing of the guard at the helm of key national organizations of the American Jewish community. The personalities interest me less than the process. From a historical perspective what is most striking is the total non–involvement of the state. No Jewish leader in the United States ever needs to secure confirmation of his or her selection from the state. Authority to exercise leadership in the Jewish community derives solely from within. The state makes no pretense of influence or power over the process.
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How God Leads
Jun 9, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
Abraham Joshua Heschel writes eloquently that the supreme aspiration of religion is to inspire each one of us, in the words of the psalmist, ‘to lift up your eyes and see.’ Heschel explains: “The grand premise of religion is that man is able to surpass himself; that man who is a part of this world may enter into a relationship with God who is greater than this world; that man may lift up his mind and be attached to the absolute; that man who is conditioned by a multiplicity of factors is capable of living with demands that are unconditioned.” The challenge, then, is to identify one’s path toward a meaningful and sanctified life, guided by one’s relationship with God.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Yikzkor: The Order of Giving
Apr 15, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pesah | Shavuot | Shemini Atzeret | Yom Kippur
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 13th 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.
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