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Read weekly Torah commentaries

Read weekly Torah commentaries

Reflections on the Torah reading cycle

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Holiday Learning and Resources

Holiday Learning and Resources

Commentaries and more on the themes, texts, and liturgy of the holidays.

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Join online classes

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Listen to JTS podcasts

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Nusah & Cantillation

Nusah & Cantillation

The tunes for Shabbat, festival, and high holiday services and Torah readings

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Online Resources

JTS Torah Archive

JTS Torah Archive

Our online Torah archive is an invaluable resource for Jewish educational content, produced and curated by JTS scholars and teachers, with new content added every week. Access Torah commentaries, video recordings of major public programs, holiday resources, and more. 

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Curricula

Curricula

Bring JTS learning to your community through our turnkey curricula and other carefully curated educational content, which utilize videos, texts, and incisive questions in courses that can be integrated into your existing adult education frameworks.

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Featured

Mordecai the Jew and Esther the Greek: The Changing Politics of the Book of Esther in Antiquity and Our Times

Mordecai the Jew and Esther the Greek: The Changing Politics of the Book of Esther in Antiquity and Our Times

Mar 18, 2024 By Aaron Koller | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Purim

The Book of Esther is a diaspora book. None of the action takes place in the Land of Israel, and the Temple is never mentioned. One of the most famous—and significant—features of the Hebrew Book of Esther is the absence of any mention of God. But these features that make Diaspora Jews feel comfortable were profoundly disturbing to some of the book’s earliest readers—so disturbing that they actually changed it.

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Playing Hide and Seek with God

Playing Hide and Seek with God

Mar 15, 2024 By Cecelia Beyer | Commentary | Pekudei

Our quest for the Divine is not a new one; we’ve been playing “hide and seek” with God since we left Egypt. In Parashat Pekudei, our ancestors also strove to come close to the Divine Presence, through assembling and dedicating the Tabernacle as a place for encountering the Divine: “When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of Adonai filled the Tabernacle” (Exod. 40:33–34). The dedication of the Tabernacle, God’s “dwelling place” on earth, was completed as God’s Presence filled and rested upon it

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Between the Lines: Perfect Enemy

Between the Lines: Perfect Enemy

Mar 13, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In a covert laboratory under the streets of Tel Aviv, Akiva Cohen, an Israeli scientist, clones Hitler from old samples of his DNA. Akiva wants to change the world for the good; but he is betrayed by those who want to use this new Hitler for unimaginable terror. Akiva is plunged into a desperate struggle to stay alive and salvage his dream, leading to a trail of murders across the country, collaboration with Hamas terrorists, and the uncovering of a devastating conspiracy at the highest levels of Israeli society. Perfect Enemy is an exciting, suspenseful thriller that poses uncomfortable questions about trauma and revenge, the desire for peace, religious extremism, and the schisms of the Middle East.

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The People Step Up

The People Step Up

Mar 8, 2024 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Vayak-hel | Shabbat Shekalim

By this point in the Book of Exodus, the story outlines are probably familiar: the people—having been redeemed from Egypt and covenanted with God on Mt. Sinai, and having already sinned a terrible sin by building the Golden Calf—respond to God’s detailed instructions to build a Tabernacle by donating so generously that the collection of the material with which to construct the sanctuary has to be stopped midway, even as the people are still in the process of donating.

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A Queen in the Tomb of the Kings: An Ancient Monument and its Modern Legacy

A Queen in the Tomb of the Kings: An Ancient Monument and its Modern Legacy

Mar 4, 2024 By Sarit Kattan Gribetz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, Queen Helena of Adiabene traveled from her kingdom in northern Mesopotamia to Jerusalem to worship the Jewish God in the temple. She ended up staying in the city, building a palace in the south and a monumental family tomb to the north. This queen was not forgotten: she appears in early Christian writings and rabbinic literature, she stars in medieval Jewish-Christian polemics, and there is a street named after her in contemporary Jerusalem.

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