Why There Is Suffering
Dec 24, 2011 By Charlie Schwartz | Commentary | Text Study | Miketz | Hanukkah
Who among us has not experienced suffering? After all, loss, sadness, and struggle are as much a part of life as joy, happiness, and triumph. This is as apparent in the emotional arc of Joseph and his family in parashat Miketz as it is in life’s experience.
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Our Aging Bodies
Nov 18, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Hayyei Sarah
If the rabbis could imagine Abraham’s dismay at the physical signs of aging, how much more so for us, men and women, living in a culture in which we are constantly bombarded with visual images of young, vigorous bodies?
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Adam’s Fear of a Darkening World
Oct 2, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Bereishit
The shock of the unexpected, the fear of change, the guilt at having done something irreversible: feelings we know all too well. When things go badly, our gut response is often, “Why me?” We then probe our actions to discover the trigger that caused it all, and bemoan our fate with those closest to us. What can the Torah teach us about how to deal with these feelings through the story of Adam?
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Reason Versus Faith
Oct 22, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Bereishit
If the ancients worried to prove God’s existence, the challenge of Darwinian evolution posed an even greater threat: counterevidence to the biblical account of Creation. In the postmodern era, we Jews-in-the-center find ourselves oddly caught in the middle of a debate portrayed in the news media as between those who insist literally on the biblical account and those who reject it altogether.
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