For Whom Do We Dress?
Mar 22, 2003 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tzav
Parashat Tsav raises the issue of clothing, and how our outer presentation can mirror, or even influence, our thoughts and behavior.
Dove and Rabbit
Mar 23, 2002 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tzav | Pesah
The experience of the exodus from Egypt, Yeziat Mitzrayim, which we commemorate on Passover, is indelibly marked in the collective consciousness of the Jewish nation. It is this notion — of having been slaves to the Egyptians — that plays such a profound role in defining the moral and ethical demands that the Torah places on us. Having known the experience of oppression, we are commanded to take that to heart, lest we turn to oppress our fellow human beings. Thus, Passover is a time in which we dwell on the essence of what it is that defines us as a people: how does our experience of slavery shape the way we behave today? What does it mean to be a chosen people? And how is that we as a people deal alternately with powerlessness and power?
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A Beacon for the Years that Lie Ahead
Mar 30, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav | Tishah Be'av
The Talmud tells that at the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in the year 586 B.C.E., the following poignant scene unfolded: “Many clusters of young priests ascended to the roof of the sanctuary with its keys in their hands and said: Lord of the Universe, since we lacked the merit to be trustworthy caretakers, let these keys be returned to Your possession.’ They threw them in the air and half-a-hand, so it appeared, stretched forth to take them in. The young priests then jumped directly into the flames.
Reconciling the Generations
Mar 26, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
My father died in 1982, some five weeks before Passover. Till then I had never conducted a seder, except for the two years I spent as an army chaplain at Fort Dix, New Jersey and Taigu, South Korea. The custom in the Schorsch family since time immemorial had been to celebrate the seders in the home of my parents. Each Passover my older sister and I, with spouses and children, would happily converge on that sacred space to hear our father sing, read, and talk his way through the Haggadah and to savor our mother’s delicious Passover menu. My mother died the following year and my sister and I, awash in memories, are now the older generation. Ten years later our families are larger and more widely dispersed and the rendezvous changes, but the tradition of an inclusive family seder has not unraveled. I have assumed my father’s mantle.
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The Spiritual Significance of the Sacrificial Cult
Mar 29, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Parah | Tzav
Our Hebrew Scripture is a library of books with many voices, a bracing diversity of literary genres and religious opinions. This is a good week to remind ourselves of that noteworthy fact as we struggle through a double dosage of cultic prescriptions. Our parasha stipulates the tasks incumbent on the priests in administering the sacrifices that ordinary Israelites might offer at the Tabernacle. On top of that, because this Shabbat is the third of the four special Shabbatot leading up to Passover, we are treated to an additional reading dealing with the potion prepared from the ashes of an unblemished red heifer for the purpose of ritual purification.
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The Power of the Mind Over Reality
Mar 25, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav
Judaism is a choir of many voices.
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Keeping “The Fires of Israel” Lit
Mar 22, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav
In a session not long ago with Seminary students on religious services, I was asked about the restoration of a phrase from the siddur that the Conservative movement had dropped as early as the 1940’s.
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Bringing the Messianic Redeption
Apr 3, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
The most distinctive feature of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath just before Passover, is that it called for a sermon. For in the pre-emancipation synagogue, the rabbi customarily spoke but twice a year: on the Shabbat prior to Passover and on the Shabbat between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah. These sermons tended to be halakhic in character, reminding congregants of the elaborate and proper observance of the holy day to come.
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