Festival Shaharit (Lower Voice)
Jun 4, 2016 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Prayer Recordings | Pesah | Shavuot | Shemini Atzeret | Simhat Torah | Sukkot
Recordings by Rabbi and Hazzan Seth Adelson
Project coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich
Festival Ma’ariv (Lower Voice)
Jun 6, 2016 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Prayer Recordings | Pesah | Shavuot | Shemini Atzeret | Simhat Torah | Sukkot
Recordings by Rabbi and Hazzan Seth Adelson
Project coordinator: Rabbi David Freidenreich
Remembering Moses
Sep 27, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vezot Haberakhah | Shemini Atzeret | Simhat Torah
My father died twenty years ago. The day of his yahrzeit has never been hard for me to remember. It follows by one day the day affixed by the Talmud for the death of Moses (BT Kiddushin 38a). Moses died on the seventh of Adar, the last month of the Jewish calendar, and my father on the eighth. Thus the Hebrew date of my father’s passing is forever anchored in my memory by its proximity to the traditional date for the demise of Moses. Reciprocally, that convergence has heightened for me the yahrzeit of Moses, which is barely noted in most Jewish calendars.
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Kafka and Returning to Torah
Oct 22, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vezot Haberakhah | Simhat Torah
Ve-zot ha-b’rakhah is the one parasha that does not have a Shabbat unto itself. As the final two chapters of the Torah, it constitutes the main reading for Simhat Torah (the joy of Torah) when we both complete the annual Torah cycle and begin it immediately again by reading the first creation story of Genesis. As if to make up for the slight, we repeat the parasha until all who are present in the synagogue have been honored with an aliyah.
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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.
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The Torah and Its Clearly Ambiguous Message
Oct 17, 2009 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Bereishit | Simhat Torah
There is a verse that I love to invoke whenever I teach about “the poetics of biblical narrative,” and it doesn’t come from this week’s portion (but who’s keeping score, anyway?). Instead, it is found in the first extended legal section, Parashat Mishpatim (Exod. 21–24). Loosely translated, this is the text: “In all charges of misunderstanding . . . whereof one party alleges, ‘This is it!’—the case of both parties shall come before God” (Exod. 22:8); the Hebrew phrase underlying the words “this is it!” is: כי הוא זה (ki hu zeh). The verse seems to be addressing a case in which no one side has a total claim on the truth; in such a case, then, one is bidden to consider both possibilities.
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Moses’s Final Words
Oct 6, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Simhat Torah
As we approach the end of the Five Books of Moses with our celebration of Simhat Torah, we arrive at Parashat Vezot Haberakhah.
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Creation and Good Health
Oct 22, 2011 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Bereishit | Simhat Torah
With this week’s celebration of Simhat Torah and Shabbat Bereishit, we return to the very beginning of Torah as we read anew the narratives of Creation, the Garden of Eden, and the tragedy of Cain and Abel.
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