How Can Humans Uphold Divine Justice?
Feb 9, 2024 By Caleb Brommer | Commentary | Mishpatim
In Parashat Mishpatim, the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by a more thoroughgoing account of the Israelite legal code. God, through Their intermediary Moshe, reveals some of the particularly sticky, tricky, and challenging cases of civil law. Mishpatim begins to answer the questions “What happens when human beings are slammed together in community? What happens when they disagree, make mistakes, and cause incidental or intentional harm? What happens when they kill each other?”
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The Limitations God Shares with Us
Feb 2, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Yitro
But how do you reconcile the idea of God’s transcendent power with such things as a failure to anticipate human flaws, or a weakness for the smell of roasting meat, or jealousy, or suffering the travails of exile? Texts such as these raise eyebrows because they seem to lower God in our estimation.
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Destiny in the Details
Jan 26, 2024 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Beshallah
Why are those small moments so poignant? It seems to be a strange question to ask at this climactic point of the Torah. This week’s parashah, Beshallah, contains one of the Torah’s biggest moments. The Israelites finally break free of the Egyptians, crossing the Red Sea on dry land while the Egyptians drown in the closing sea behind them. Jubilant in their triumph, they sing to God, led by Moses and Miriam. For a brief moment, they are united in their faith and in the glory of the moment.
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What Do Tefillin Do?
Jan 19, 2024 By Lara Rodin | Commentary | Bo
Our sages explained that the placement of our tefillin as a “sign upon our hands” and a “reminder on our foreheads” is meant to represent the intellect (tefillin shel rosh) and the physicality (tefillin shel yad) of a person. For Keli Yakar, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, both the tefillin that sits on our arm and the tefillin that sits above our eyes are meant to represent the dichotomy that is at play between thought and action.
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When the Nile Gave Up Its Terrible Secret
Jan 12, 2024 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Va'era
Rabbinic commentators, in referring to an earlier exegete, sometimes say, “His interpretation requires its own interpretation.” All the more so it can be said that a midrashic interpretation sometimes needs its own midrashic interpretation, for in an effort to solve theological or textual difficulties, the midrash can present us with farfetched, even phantasmagoric, scenarios. Upon deeper reflection, however, we often discover that these phantasms are actually manifestations of profound truths. Let’s consider such a midrash, which both illuminates and is illuminated by a passage in this week’s Torah portion.
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Moshe the Mindful?
Jan 5, 2024 By Lilliana Shvartsmann | Commentary | Shemot
Moshe’s journey mirrors the struggles many face in navigating transitions and seeking purpose amidst uncertainty. The 19th-century Polish commentator Ha’emek Hadavar suggests Moshe intentionally led his flock to the most remote location, a place no other shepherd dared venture, seeking solitude. He needed such desolation to encounter God. While we don’t know if Moshe had his own meditation, journaling, or spiritual practices that promoted solitude, his courage and strength in recognizing the necessity of solitude are evident.
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Is it Heretical to Ask God for Protection?
Dec 29, 2023 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Vayehi
Jacob’s words of blessing to Joseph in chapter 48 surprise me every time that I read them. Though putatively an attempt to bless his son, they are primarily directed at his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and gain authority from Jacob’s fathers and from the shepherding and redeeming God he has known so intimately throughout his life.
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The Reason(s) Jacob Went Down to Egypt
Dec 22, 2023 By Ira Tokayer | Commentary | Vayiggash
Parashat Vayiggash is a good place to illustrate the modern scholarship, which sees the Torah’s Joseph story as a combination of three source documents with separate accounts of how and why Jacob descended to Egypt.
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