The Fortitude of the Jewish Soul
Dec 15, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
This year I will not be celebrating Hanukkah at home. I’m off to Israel on December 6, and will not be back till the seventh day of the festival, just in time to light a full complement of eight candles on the last night in the midst of family. It is hard to capture the beauty of this holiday or any other on your own. Neither synagogue nor prayer begins to exhaust the repertoire of ritual that enlivens the distinctive character of every Jewish holy day. The home is the great aquifer of our Judaism, indispensable but undervalued.
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Finding Political Guidance in the Torah
Jun 7, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Naso
We Jews are up to our necks in political concern these days, in part because power and influence are ours to an unprecedented degree. How shall we think about these matters? Is there a Jewish approach to politics in general, and to these sorts of issues in particular?
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Taking the Journey with Abraham
Nov 7, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Five short verses after he (and we) first encounter that Land on which the Jewish future will turn ever after, a famine sends Abraham down to the place where he (and we) spend the remainder of chapter 12 of Genesis, a foreign land where he gets embroiled in a complex interaction with the Pharaoh that foreshadows a great deal of the text and history to come.
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“And Shall We Do It?”
Nov 15, 2015 By Louis Polisson | Commentary | Vayetzei
It is not in Heaven
And I did not know
I said: “Who shall go up for us to heaven?
I don’t want to, I don’t care
I don’t understand…”
Our Covenant with God
Jun 4, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
When Moses confronts the gravest challenge to his and God’s authority since the golden calf, the negative report of the spies sent to scout the Land of Israel, he responds with a lawyerly argument for divine mercy that is taken directly from the one that had staved off the people’s annihilation by God the first time around. The argument takes the form of a question: What will the Egyptians say if God destroys His people?
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Emerging From the Wilderness
Aug 7, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Re'eh
In this week’s parashah, the book of Deuteronomy leaves prologue behind as the Israelites come one step closer to exiting the wilderness in which they have so long been wandering. Moses has set forth and fine-tuned the major themes of his final discourse. Now it is time for him to lay out a blueprint of the commandments that will shape and guide the new life awaiting the Children of Israel upon their entry to the Land of Israel.
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The Pursuit of Justice
Sep 3, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shofetim
Rousseau opened his famous essay on the ideal political order, “The Social Contract,” by stating his intention to “imagine men as they are and laws as they might be.” The same could be said of Moses’s objective in the book of Deuteronomy and particularly in this week’s parashah.
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Looking Upward and Outward
Nov 7, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera
Sight and vision play an important role in the two opening narratives of Parashat Vayera.
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