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The Poetry of Sinai
May 27, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Bemidbar
I rarely encounter texts like the midrash above that so completely challenge static notions about Torah.
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We Are All Borrowers
May 13, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Behar
I love discovering rabbinic texts like the one above that make such radical claims about Torah and God in general or about particular laws like tzedakah (righteous giving), one subject at the heart of this week’s Torah portion.
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Bringing Compassion into Our Lives
May 7, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Emor
Late this past Sunday night, Erev Yom HaSho’ah (the Eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day), I heard the news that Osama bin Laden was dead, that the most infamous nemesis of the United States since Hitler and Stalin had been killed in an American military operation to capture him. While watching the television reports of celebrations outside the White House and near Ground Zero, I felt mixed emotions: relief for the end of the manhunt; elation over the retribution for innocent lives lost; and discomfort with my pride in the violent end of another human life, even one as murderous as this adversary’s was.
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Loving in God’s Image
Apr 30, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Kedoshim
At numerous points in Jewish history, rabbis and scholars have addressed the question of what tenet or observance represents the heart of Judaism. Seldom, however, have our teachers argued the converse about a biblical text that ought to be eliminated from the canon.
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Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat
Apr 16, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Aharei Mot | Shabbat Hagadol
One of my favorite customs for Shabbat Hagadol is to read the Maggid section of the Passover Haggadah in advance of the first seder.
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Birth, Both Spiritual and Physical
Apr 2, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tazria
How can men understand something like pregnancy, which is so fundamentally foreign to the male experience? As contemporary Jews, we often raise questions about how our classical sources, compiled by men, portray “the other,” in this case, child-bearing women. We find in the midrash above an ancient rabbi’s attempt to understand childbirth, the opening subject of this week’s Torah portion, and identify men’s role in it.
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Different Kinds of Teshuvah
Mar 19, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tzav
What does “a broken spirit,” let alone the return of animal sacrifice, have to do with preparing for Purim, the wildest holiday in our tradition?
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What Our Clothes Can Do For Us
Feb 12, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tetzavveh
I recall first grasping the wise adage that “the clothes make the man” in a dressing room at the Kennedy Center between acts of the Washington Opera’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. After performing as a peasant child in the chorus, I needed to change quickly into the opulent regal attire for my other role as Tsareyvitch — the tsar’s son. Exchanging my drab brown clothing for a multicolored outfit of silk, sequins, and rhinestones completely shifted my sense of self and purpose.
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Our Converts Are Precious
Jan 29, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Mishpatim
This midrash about an actual convert expands the scope of this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, which contemporary scholars call the “Covenant Collection” because of its numerous laws that follow and complement the Ten Commandments.
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Protective Paralysis
Jan 15, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Beshallah
Have we become like Pharaoh in the midrash above: both an oppressive captor and a powerless captive of his own psychological blindness?
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Speaking Truth to Power
Jan 1, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Va'era
Might this midrash be intentionally ironic? Surely, the anonymous Sage who imagines this divine monologue would have acknowledged Abraham’s chutzpah in questioning God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Even if that encounter only amounts to an implicit critique of God’s ways, it sets the stage for one of the most important acts of Moses’s career.
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Leaving a Legacy
Dec 18, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Vayehi
What kind of legacy will we leave when we die? Much of our fear of dying is similar to Jacob’s, as described in this week’s Torah portion and further imagined in the midrash above. We worry that our ideals and our values will not survive among the next generation.
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From Darkness to Eight Lights
Dec 4, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Miketz
During the outreach classes I lead for The Jewish Theological Seminary, I have recently fielded questions about evil and suffering with what seems to be greater frequency each week. Is there a connection between the decreased hours of daylight and my students’ concern about why bad things happen to good people?
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Who We Are and Where We’re Going
Nov 20, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Vayishlah
Can we ever break free from the troubled darkness of our past?
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Personal Transformation
Nov 20, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Vayishlah
A close examination of Genesis 34 and contemporary responses to its narrative will show how one of the Torah’s most troubling passages can inspire us to take action. We must, in the words of Proverbs 31:8, “speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” We must address similar injustices in today’s society in order to protect the living.
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Speaking for the Silenced
Nov 20, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Vayishlah
Commonly found in coroner’s offices across North America is the following motto: “We speak for the dead to protect the living.” Ancient and modern biblical commentators have taken a similar stance toward the rape of Dinah and its aftermath. A close examination of Genesis 34 and contemporary responses to its narrative will show how one of the Torah’s most troubling passages can inspire us to take action. We must, in the words of Proverbs 31:8, “speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” We must address similar injustices in today’s society in order to protect the living.
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Biblical PTSD
Nov 1, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Toledot
Many centuries before the advent of modern medicine in general and care for mental health in particular, our Sages developed the symbolic language of angels’ tears to explain the hidden wounds impressed upon Isaac’s psyche in the aftermath of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac.
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The Person You Are Now
Oct 23, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Vayera
“Innocent until proven guilty” approximates God’s judgment of Ishmael in the midrash above.
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Light in the Window
Oct 9, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Noah
How is prayer like a window or a gem? One early modern response to the midrash above answers that question with devotional creativity.
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Angel Tears
Oct 6, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Toledot
Many centuries before the advent of modern medicine in general and care for mental health in particular, our Sages developed the symbolic language of angels’ tears to explain the hidden wounds impressed upon Isaac’s psyche in the aftermath of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Today, one finds myriad psychological interpretations of his near-death experience at the hands of his father, Abraham. In fact, a trend has emerged in Israeli poetry over the last few decades: reexamining the Akedah as a paradigm for understanding the role of trauma and fear in contemporary Jewish life.
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