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Jacob’s Prayer for Lasting Peace

Dec 9, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei

My grandchildren call their grandparents “Sabba” and “Savta.” These ancient Aramaic words for grandfather and grandmother are firmly ensconced in the vocabulary of contemporary Hebrew. Like “Abba” and “Imma” (the Hebrew words for father and mother), they are terms of address and endearment. They ring with love and intimacy. But they also connect us to something far beyond our family circle. They bind us to the State of Israel, where the language is Hebrew, and to the history of the Jewish people, whose literary, if not spoken language was always Hebrew. To make use of such linguistic fragments in our personal lives locates us in a cultural context and continuum that resonates with deep meaning.

Two Brothers, Two Candidates

Dec 2, 2000 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Toledot | Purim

This week’s parashah, Tol’dot, tells the story the story of Isaac and Rebecca’s twin sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau is born with a slight advantage of age, with Jacob born close at his heels. The two brothers vie, each with measures of bluster and guile and with the support of a favoring authority figure, for the birthright and the destiny of a nation. This story has been played out more than once in history- most recently between two candidates in our own day.

The Torah’s Slip of the Tongue

Nov 25, 2000 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

There’s a certain delight in catching a person in a “slip of the tongue”, a so-called “Freudian slip”. Unintentionally, the person speaking has let us into his inner thoughts and revealed a concealed, sometimes profound, perception. In our Torah portion this week, we seem to be privy to just such a slip of the tongue – or slip of the text, in this instance – and it leads us to profound insights about the nature of human relationships.

The Mitzvah of Circumcision

Nov 11, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Parashat Lekh L’kha is the story of God’s covenant with Abraham and, by extension, with all future Israelite generations. The climax of this story is the mitzvah of circumcision. Few mitzvot in our tradition have elicited the enduring commitment and unwavering observance of the majority of our people as has the ritual of circumcision. Few mitzvot have yielded the intensity of emotion and fascination which pervades any brit milah.

The Genome Project

Oct 28, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bereishit

The genome project holds out the promise to alleviate some social as well as physical ills. This past summer the New York Times ran a long article in its weekly Science section (my favorite) to the effect that the noxious concept of race has no genetic foundation. Caucasians, Africans and Asians are genetically indistinguishable No more than .01 percent of our gene pool determines our external appearance, the basis on which we make racial distinctions. In contrast, many thousands of our 80,000 genes combine to produce such traits as intelligence, artistic talents and social skills.

Kafka and Returning to Torah

Oct 22, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vezot Haberakhah | Simhat Torah

Ve-zot ha-b’rakhah is the one parasha that does not have a Shabbat unto itself. As the final two chapters of the Torah, it constitutes the main reading for Simhat Torah (the joy of Torah) when we both complete the annual Torah cycle and begin it immediately again by reading the first creation story of Genesis. As if to make up for the slight, we repeat the parasha until all who are present in the synagogue have been honored with an aliyah.

The Seventy Bulls of Sukkot

Oct 14, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot

Sukkot is the most joyous and universal of the three harvest festivals ordained by the Torah. It marks the end of the agricultural year as well as the summer harvest, and we are explicitly instructed by the Torah to rejoice with our family and community (Deuteronomy 16:17). In that spirit, the Rabbis turned the common noun, hag (festival), into the proper name of the holiday, he-Hag (the festival par excellence). They also designated Sukkot as “the season of our joy” in the prayers for the festival.

Doves, Hawks and Ravens

Oct 4, 2000 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Noah

At moments like this in the history of the Jewish people, the image of the dove bearing an olive branch resonates in the communal consciousness, even if the peace that it represents seems to flee ever further. I don’t know if ornithological truth bears out the common conception, but in the rabbinic mind, the dove is stereotypically non-aggressive and defensive. Not surprisingly, the Rabbi often compare the Jewish people to the dove, for instance, “Just as the dove is only saved by its wings, so too Israel is only preserved by the mitzvot” (B.T. Brachot 53b).

Writing Your Own Obituary

Sep 30, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

A year ago a news story in The New York Times caught for me the essence of our annual High Holy Day season. Under the piquant title, “In their Obituaries, Absent Dads Face Life,” the Times reported on a job training program in Milwaukee with a twist. Its overt goal was to improve the work skills of fathers down on their luck who had abandoned their children. Child support could come only from men able to hold a job. But the program also aimed to imbue them with a sense of responsibility. A few weeks into their training, after a level of trust had been achieved, they were asked to imagine the obituary their children would one day write on their death and to share it with the group.

An Uneasy Relationship with the God of History

Sep 16, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo

The Hebrew adjective for being ungrateful is kefui tovah. The idiom stresses the willfulness of the sentiment. The situation calls for an expression of gratitude and we squelch the impulse. The word kefui is related to the word kefiah as in the phrase current in contemporary Israeli politics, kefiah datit – religious coercion, both forms deriving from the root kafah, to suppress. The language makes it clear that saying thanks does not come naturally. We are reluctant to acknowledge a favor that might reveal our need or shortcoming. And so the Torah institutionalizes a thanksgiving ritual, though an unusual one.

The Commandment to Be an Upstander

Sep 9, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

In July, 1994, I returned to Esslingen, the medieval town not far from Stuttgart, Germany where my mother was born. My grandfather ran a boarding school and enjoyed a regional reputation as an innovative educator. The handsome building which housed it still serves as a school, though no longer Jewish, and bears his name, bestowed by the city fathers a decade earlier in a spirit of contrition. That summer, school and city officials commemorated the 50th anniversary of my grandfather’s death in Theresienstadt, and invited me to speak at the event held on the premises of the school in the room which had once been its synagogue.

How We Serve God

Aug 26, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Re'eh

Demonstrating uncompromising devotion to God is the theme of this week’s parashah, Parashat Re’eh. Such devotion is expressed through belief, but more importantly, through avodah, meaningful service to God. For the biblical Israelite, service to God meant loyalty to God’s commandments and participation in the sacrificial cult. For Deuteronomy, avodah referred specifically to offering sacrifices to God at a central place of worship: “look only to the site that the Lord your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go, and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices…” (Deuteronomy 12:5-6).

Technology and Torahs

Aug 19, 2000 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Eikev

One of the hazards of dealing with technology is its built–in obsolescence. The computer that you bought two years ago is suddently too slow, too short on memory to perform even the simplest task. It is true that the frenetic pace of change in today’s society accentuates the problem, but it is a fact of the natural world that every product of human hands has a limit to its useful lifespan.

Our Nature Is to Be with God

Aug 9, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

Parashat Vaet’hanan comes in the aftermath of Tisha B’Av, the fast in which we commemorate the destruction of both the First and Second Temples and other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. The theme of our asceticism on this day is not only mourning, but more importantly a spur to teshuvah, repentance. This week’s parashah informs our understanding of calamity and its relation to teshuvah. Moses warns the Israelites, “take care, then, not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God conc

The Relevance of Tish’ah Be’av

Aug 2, 2000 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av

Next week, Jews around the world will observe Tisha B’av, mourning the destruction of the First and Second Temples and commemorating many other tragedies of Jewish history. The literary centerpiece of the holiday is the book of Lamentations, Eikha, which mourns the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people from its land. The book’s refrain is the word “Eikha,” asking the question “How could it be?”–“How could it be that the teeming city lay desolate, that God rejected God’s people?” (Lam 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 4:2)

The Treasure of Torah

Jul 30, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

Lists are the most rudimentary type of historical evidence. To us they are lifeless and repetitive, devoid of narrative and significance. Yet, for the historian endowed with imagination, they often become the building blocks for first-rate economic, social or political history. Lack of meaning lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Between Zealotry and Peace

Jul 22, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pinehas

This week, we read the first of three “haftarot of rebuke” which precede Tisha B’av. Even though this Haftorah is ordinarily associated with Mattot, Mattot is read as the first half of a double–portion this year. We read this haftorah a week “early” to be sure we don’t miss it.

Listening to Our Enemies

Jul 8, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Korah

On Motzei Shabbat, June 24, 2000, the Conservative synagogue of the Ramot neighborhood in Jerusalem, Kehillat Ya’ar Ramot, was set ablaze. According to the New York Times (Monday, June 26, 2000) this hateful act also involved the defacement of the synagogue “with grafitti that labeled it a place unworthy of worship, and said that a yeshiva–trained Jew should not be there.” Numerous eyewitnesses saw “apparently religious men, wearing black velvet skullcaps and white shirts, fleeing as the flames raged.” Prime Minister Ehud Barak rightly called this tragic incident “an awful act that causes every Jew to shudder.” Indeed, the flames which marred this synagogue were ignited by sinat hinam, baseless hatred a painful, incomprehensible hatred all too familiar to the Jewish people.

Perception and Practice

Jul 1, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

A Matter of Perspective

Jul 1, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

Six years ago, while studying in Israel, a close friend, my father and I decided to make a two day camping trip to Eilat and then to St. Catherine’s Monastery which sits at the foot of what Christian tradition believes to be Mt. Sinai. For me, this was my second pilgrimage to this extraordinary site; my first hike up Jebel Musa (Mt. Sinai) had taken place two years earlier. And so as the experienced one, I planned out the hike such that we would begin hiking from the monastery at about four in the afternoon – enough time to avoid the intense heat of the mid–day sun and to also allow plenty of time for us to reach the summit in time to see the sun set. Along the trek, we were treated to magnificent vistas of desert colors playing off the mountains comprising the Sinai Desert.

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