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.

Angel Analysis

Feb 3, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

The Passover seder song, Had Gadya, is sung to a merry little tune that belies the violent content. Why this song is sung at Passover is the subject of varying interpretations, but one connection seems clear: malakh ha-mavet, the angel of death. After all wasn’t it the angel of death that slew the first-born of Egypt? Actually, it was not.

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.

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.

Judaism’s Message

Aug 9, 2003 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Va'et-hannan | Tishah Be'av

Reenacting an historical moment through liturgy and deed is a forte of Judaism. Our calendar year overflows with holidays and observances that transport us to our former days and inspire us to reenter the narrative and relive salient moments of history. This week in particular, observing the 9th of Av, we read of the destruction of the Temple and continue the mourning of our ancestors for the calamities that befell them. While it is possible to read this narrative as a preventive measure to ensure that we, too, do not fall victims to George Santayana’s dictum condemning us to either learn from our history or repeat it, I believe that Judaism’s message is a blessing, not a curse. It is a blessing for us to be able to relive life’s difficult moments – and the reason why can be gleaned from Moses’ behavior and our parasha this week.

The Power of the Spirit

Jul 26, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av

This week’s parashah finds the Israelites routing the Midianites. The victory is total; the five kings of Midian and all their male subjects meet their death. The Torah appears to go out of its way to inform us that the Israelites “also put Balaam son of Beor to the sword (31:8).” It is a passing detail that triggered the rabbinic imagination. The narrative fragments which constitute the interaction of this pagan prophet with the fate of Israel seem little more than dots waiting to be connected midrashically. A form of reader participation, midrash embellishes the spare story line of Torah narrative. In the process, it tends to give the material a refreshingly moral twist.

Why We Eat Dairy on Shavu’ot

Jun 7, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shavuot

The menu for the first day of Shavuot is customarily restricted to dairy dishes. While a plethora of explanations has been generated to account for the practice, I prefer the most serious one. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the governing covenant between God and Israel, the constitution of the Jewish polity. The event marks the adoption of a religious regimen that would henceforth define the borders of individual and group behavior. That to which the Israelites were formerly entitled is no longer permitted.

This Time Could Be Different

Aug 31, 2015 By Mychal Springer | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur