![The Poetry and Theology of Tishah Be’av](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
The Poetry and Theology of Tishah Be’av
Jul 24, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
On the Shabbat prior to the fast of Tishah b’Av, the synagogue reverberates to the opening chapters of Deuteronomy. The name of the book and of the parashah, Devarim – Words – emphasizes the key Jewish response to calamity. Historically, Jews rebuild their shattered worlds with words of high emotion and daring imagination. Like God at the dawn of creation, we bring order out of chaos through words. The instrument has nothing to do with the magic of incantations. It mirrors the fundamental human condition. The worlds we inhabit are a construct of our minds.
Read More![Overcoming the Past](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
Overcoming the Past
Jun 12, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shelah Lekha | Rosh Hashanah
This week’s parashah strikes a note that reverberates throughout the liturgy of our High Holy Day services: “I pardon (salahti), as you have asked (14:20).” Prayers for forgiveness (selihot-same word) punctuate the season of introspection from the week before Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur. Not surprisingly, this verse from our parashah appears often in these prayers. The concept of atonement enables us to bridge the chasm between divine expectation and human reality. It prevents the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good. For humans, holiness is always a temporary state of being. Without forgiveness, we would find ourselves forever alienated from God.
Read More![What Is a Sukkah, Really?](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
What Is a Sukkah, Really?
Sep 30, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
During the festival of Sukkot in 1974, while on sabbatical in Israel, the Schorsch family took a trip to Sharm El Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.
Read More![The Truth about the Exodus](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/BV-headshot-228x300.jpg)
The Truth about the Exodus
Apr 30, 2005 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Pesah
This past December, I went with my wife and two adult children on a family vacation to Egypt.
Read More![Bringing the Messianic Redeption](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
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.
Read More![Longing for Our Homeland](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jtslogo_pms173___high_res_square-4-300x300.jpg)
Longing for Our Homeland
Dec 20, 2003 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Vayeshev | Hanukkah
Mrs. Matsunaga looked at me with a puzzled face. She was the local English teacher in a village in Northern Japan. Moments before, she had bustled into the house where I was staying. It had come up in conversation that I was Jewish and she was trying to figure out what that meant. Suddenly, her face cleared. “You are from Israel,” she exclaimed. I laughed and said: “Yes, but that was a long time ago.”
Read More![Connecting Pesah with Sukkot](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
Connecting Pesah with Sukkot
Oct 10, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pesah | Sukkot
The parallelism between Sukkot and Pesach is striking. The Torah scripts them to start on the fifteenth day of the month when the moon is full and to last for seven days. Originally agricultural festivals, their historical overlay links them both to the redemption from Egypt. In each case, the name of the festival derives from the ritual which is its most prominent feature. In tandem, the two anchor the changing of the seasons in the fall and the spring (the two times of year when the seasons actually change in the Middle East) in the biblical calendar. They are the axis on which that calendar turns.
Read More![Taking Refuge in Sacred Texts](https://www.jtsa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/jts_december_2017_shaltz_1237_ismar_schorsch-300x300.jpg)
Taking Refuge in Sacred Texts
Oct 19, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Simhat Torah
Most books that we read we never open again. A classic draws us to revisit it on occasion. Not so the Torah. As we finish reading it yearly in our synagogues, we immediately begin it afresh, without interruption.
Read More