JTS Torah Archive

Is Seeing Believing?

Oct 23, 2010 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Vayera

Is seeing believing? Or, to put it another way, is seeing necessary for believing? I am not asking a theological question, but a psychological/social/emotional one.

Mentioning our Mothers

Oct 16, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Lekh Lekha

Did the Imahot (matriarchs) have a relationship with God?

This question has nagged at me of late, brought to the surface by the welcome feminist language of the new Mahzor Lev Shalom. Faced by the names of the Imahot staring at me from the page, I found myself confronting anew a question I have not revisited in some time: was Abraham’s God Sarah’s God too?

Woody Allen’s Torah

Oct 12, 2010 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

The brilliance of Allen’s film arises from his portrayal of the ethical corruption of each of his characters and the extent to which he plays on the sense of sight. Ironically, the ophthalmologist, who specializes in physical sight, is corrupted by ethical blindness, while the rabbi, who represents morality, is physically going blind. Indeed, the juxtaposition of sight and insight figure prominently in both Allen’s film and this week’s parashah, Lekh Lekha. By focusing our exegetical lenses on the parting of ways between Avram and Lot (Gen. 13), we discover not only a physical separation between the two characters, but also a spiritual and ethical divide that cuts to the very core of their world views.

Light in the Window

Oct 9, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Noah

How is prayer like a window or a gem? One early modern response to the midrash above answers that question with devotional creativity.

A Lesson From Sarajevo

Oct 9, 2010 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Noah

It was raining when we visited Mostar, a city enshrined in memory by Christiane Amanpour reporting for CNN while standing in front of the ruins of the historic bridge that had united the city before the war devastated Yugoslavia. In 1993, that bridge was destroyed by shelling after standing for 427 years. On one side lived Christians, and on the other, Muslims. Before the war, Christians and Muslims freely crossed the bridge. They did business together, rejoiced together, married one another. Families had extensive ties on both sides of the Neretva River (see photo below). As the Bible might say, they shared “the same language and the same words.”

Angel Tears

Oct 6, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Toledot

Many centuries before the advent of modern medicine in general and care for mental health in particular, our Sages developed the symbolic language of angels’ tears to explain the hidden wounds impressed upon Isaac’s psyche in the aftermath of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Today, one finds myriad psychological interpretations of his near-death experience at the hands of his father, Abraham. In fact, a trend has emerged in Israeli poetry over the last few decades: reexamining the Akedah as a paradigm for understanding the role of trauma and fear in contemporary Jewish life.

Searching for Signs

Oct 5, 2010 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Toledot

This week’s Torah portion contains an ambiguity that is rarely noted, and yet it is crucial to how we understand the contest between Rebecca and Isaac. When Rebecca experiences the as yet unborn children struggling, indeed almost crushing each other, she goes “to seek God”—whatever that may mean. She is told that two nations will emerge from her womb, two nations that will contend with each other and, the divine response concludes, “ve-rav ya’avod za’ir.“

To Begin Again

Oct 2, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Bereishit

The shock of the unexpected, the fear of change, the guilt at having done something irreversible: feelings we know all too well.

Mastery or Care?

Oct 2, 2010 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Bereishit

This coming Shabbat, we return to the beginning of the Torah with Parashat Bereishit.

Adam’s Fear of a Darkening World

Oct 2, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Bereishit

The shock of the unexpected, the fear of change, the guilt at having done something irreversible: feelings we know all too well. When things go badly, our gut response is often, “Why me?” We then probe our actions to discover the trigger that caused it all, and bemoan our fate with those closest to us. What can the Torah teach us about how to deal with these feelings through the story of Adam?

The Relevance of History

Oct 1, 2010 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Bereishit

Although the book of Genesis is exceedingly familiar to us, there is not a year that goes by when most of us are not struck by one aspect or another of the text, as if reading it for the very first time. It is the universal and profound message of Genesis that enables us to look at the parashah, year after year, and find in it something new, fresh, and even inspirational. One of the central themes of the reading, Bereishit, is that God created humankind in God’s own image.

Eating in the Wilderness

Sep 24, 2010 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Sukkot

With Sukkot on my mind, the wilderness controversy prompted me to imagine what the Israelites’ experience of the wilderness might be like nowadays in contrast to biblical times. How much of the hardship of their forty-year trek from Egypt to Canaan might they have been spared if their four-wheel (instead of four-legged)-drive vehicles had been guided by GPS rather than meandering pillars of fire and cloud, or if the signage in the desert had amounted to more than a few indecipherable graffiti (even more obscure than Garden State Parkway markers)?

Why We Rejoice

Sep 23, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Sukkot

We are blessed with so much—until we are not. Which is why we don’t count chickens before they hatch or rejoice before the crops are in: it ain’t over till it’s over.

Seeing the World Around Us

Sep 18, 2010 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Yom Kippur

On Rosh Hashanah our view is panoramic; on Yom Kippur it is myopic. This difference between the two holidays is intentional; the holidays are designed to live in stark contrast. Remarkably, just eight days ago, our focus was totally different than it is now. On Rosh Hashanah, for example, we gaze globally; on Yom Kippur, we exist locally.

Sea of Repentance

Sep 18, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Yom Kippur

I can think of no better metaphor than mikveh for God’s role during aseret y’mei teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that lead up to and include Yom Kippur.

On Judaism and Islam

Sep 9, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

Jews have prepared for the High Holiday season of repentance and renewal in 2010 with Muslims very much on our minds. 

The Religious Value of Critical Study

Aug 28, 2010 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Parashat Ki Tavo begins with a description of the ceremony for bringing the first fruits to the Temple. As part of this ritual, the following is to be recited by the pilgrim bringing the produce:

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he descended to Egypt. There he became a great and mighty nation. The Egyptians did us harm and caused us suffering; they placed upon us the burden of hard labor. We called out to the Lord the God of our ancestors; God heard our voices, and He saw our suffering, our hard labor and our oppression. The Lord brought us forth from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with signs and with wonders. And he brought us to this place, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now behold I have brought the first fruits of the land that You have given to me. (Deut. 26:5–10)

The Jewish “Lost and Found”

Aug 21, 2010 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

Few sights are as pathetic as the mountain of lost items accumulated at a summer camp or school at the end of the season. Clothes that once were valuable to their owners (or at least, to their parents) now lie dirty and discarded in a noisome heap that no one wants to touch. Perhaps in the premodern world, where people stayed put and personal effort was required to manufacture each item, fewer things got lost.

Emerging From the Wilderness

Aug 7, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Re'eh

In this week’s parashah, the book of Deuteronomy leaves prologue behind as the Israelites come one step closer to exiting the wilderness in which they have so long been wandering. Moses has set forth and fine-tuned the major themes of his final discourse. Now it is time for him to lay out a blueprint of the commandments that will shape and guide the new life awaiting the Children of Israel upon their entry to the Land of Israel.

Adhering to God’s Word

Jul 31, 2010 By Raymond Scheindlin | Commentary | Eikev

In Parashat Eikev, we hear the voice of Moses, that most eloquent of preachers, exhorting the Israelites as to how to behave in the Land that he is never to see. He reminds them of their past misconduct and warns that if it continues, they will not thrive in the Land. He devotes much of his attention to the Land itself.