Awakening to the Divine Radiance
Feb 6, 2010 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Yitro
This Shabbat we read the most pivotal narrative in all of scripture: the revelation of God to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, the reception of the Torah as the divine word transmitted through Moses. From this moment forth, everything changes. The people enter into a covenantal relationship with God; they accept the life of mitzvot as their responsibility and the obligation of their descendents. At the heart of this narrative is the transmission of the Ten Commandments (or the Ten Statements [aseret ha-dibbrot]), the core principles understood by later Jewish tradition to be the root and foundation of all the mitzvot, the fabric of Jewish religious life.
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The Resiliency and Faith of Youth
Feb 11, 2012 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Yitro
Why do bad things happen to good people?
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Torah and the Supreme Court
Feb 11, 2012 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Yitro
These are all the essential ingredients for the recipe of how we interpret the Torah at JTS—language, history, tradition, precedent, purpose, and consequence. It is these very same principles that define our vision for study, law, and practice.
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How We Believe in God
Jan 30, 2013 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Yitro
The Mishnah and the two Talmuds mostly address details of Jewish observance; they rarely discuss the purpose of individual commandments, nor how the mitzvot mesh to create an integrated religious ethos.
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Exodus 18: The Proverbial Visit of the In-Laws
Jan 15, 2014 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Yitro
“Come and listen to my story ’bout a man named . . . Jethro!”
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Shabbat: A Model Of, and For, the World
Feb 6, 2015 By William Friedman | Commentary | Yitro
In Parashat Yitro, the command to “remember” Shabbat (Exod. 20:8) is observed in order to recognize the eternal sanctity of the day on which God rested on the seventh day of Creation. This command is recapitulated in Deuteronomy with significant revision: the Israelites are to “observe” Shabbat (Deut. 5:12) in order to ensure that slaves (i.e., workers) are given an opportunity for rest. What are we to make of these dual aspects of Shabbat, one in which we reenact God’s primordial resting; the other in which we attempt to achieve a measure of protection for the economically vulnerable?
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The Bite of Desire
Feb 6, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Yitro
Do you covet? I do, and it makes me sad. Perhaps I’m too hard on myself. We all see things that we want, don’t have, and wish we did. There is too much in the world that is bright and shiny—offering pleasure and excitement—not to see it and feel the ache of its absence in my life. And I speak not only of the ephemeral delights that beckon. Even more difficult to contemplate are my fellow human beings whose personal and professional lives leave me despondent when measuring myself against them: scholars who have written books that I haven’t, friends who seem to be better spouses or more successful parents, people who have paid off their mortgages, men who still have all their hair. In short, the list is endless.
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Bearing Witness to Torah
Jan 22, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Yitro
Everything that precedes Sinai in the Torah’s narrative leads up to it. Everything that comes afterward—in the Torah, the Bible and Judaism as a whole—follows from the fact of Covenant and works out its consequences for Israel and the world. Your life and mine are shaped by the account presented in this week’s parashah. I would like to suggest two major ways in which that is so.
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