What Was Promised to Abraham?

Nov 11, 2016 By Hillel Ben Sasson | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

In this week’s parashah, Abraham makes his dramatic first appearance on the stage of the Torah, when he follows the command to go forth to an unknown land, relying on the promise of an unknown God. His moving story, along with that of his sons and grandsons, has captivated readers from all three large monotheistic religions. Generation after generation wished to read these patriarchal and matriarchal stories into their lives, their time and place.

A Land of Promise

Nov 11, 2016 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Abraham continually inspires us, his descendants, in his ability to place trust in the journey. God’s command to “[j]ourney forth from your country, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house” (Gen. 12:1) is striking: Leaving one’s country is doable. But to journey from one’s birthplace and familial connections is jarring—with the potential to transform one into an aimless wanderer. Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his roots for an indeterminate future—for the place that God will show him. A promise. And nothing more.

Corruption Begins at Home

Sep 9, 2016 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Shofetim

Only here are three prime ministers
investigated and don’t cooperate.

Only here do I feel belonging,
Even though I’m angry about the corruption.

Remembering Pesah 1946

Apr 22, 2016 By Avinoam Patt | Commentary | Pesah

Every Passover as we read the Haggadah, we recite:

In each and every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as though he actually left Egypt. As it says: “You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of this that God took me out of Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:8)

Seventy years ago, in April 1946, the first Passover in postwar Germany followed the liberation of the concentration camps. The survivors who gathered to form the She’erit Hapletah, the surviving remnant, felt this transition from slavery in a more immediate sense than any generation of the children of Israel in the 2,000 years that preceded them. 

Our Influence on God

May 10, 2008 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Yom Hazikaron-Yom Ha'atzma'ut

At the geographic heart of Parashat Emor lies a seemingly innocuous statement: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the Lord, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions (Leviticus 23:1–2).”

Political Extremism in Hebron

Nov 9, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Our parasha opens with the death of Sarah at the age of 127. Later in the parasha, when Abraham will breathe his last “at a good ripe age, old and contented (Genesis 25:8),” he will have celebrated 175 birthdays.

Torah and Livelihood

Sep 20, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Among the cascade of curses that pour forth in Parashat Ki Tavo, one in particular grabs my attention this year, not because of the vividness of its brutality (others surpass it), but because of its later application in a talmudic dispute. Our reading of a text is often a function of what we have on our mind. I refer to a fairly generic articulation of the fate of national subjugation: “Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve – in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything – the enemies whom the Lord will let loose against you… (Deuteronomy 28:47–48). The phrase “ve–avadeta et oyvekha – you shall have to serve your enemies” is the link to a discussion in the Talmud about the issue of just how much of our lives are we expected to devote to the study of Torah.

A Torah of Humility

Aug 21, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shofetim

Tension is the home in which Jewish history has thrived. Prior to and with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the clarion call of Zionism declared that the Jewish people must become “a nation as all other nations.” While the Zionist argument represents a plea for normalcy and acceptance within the international community, it also seems to reject the classical notion of Jewish chosenness – that the Jews are a chosen and unique people. How is it possible to reconcile this contradiction between the Zionist dream and the traditional understanding of the Jewish polity?