Explore JTS’s Online Torah

We invite you to search our vast collection of today’s most compelling Jewish conversations, teaching, and resources, including weekly Torah commentaries, online lectures, curricula for community use, and more.

Use the search bar and filters to find what inspires you.

Read weekly Torah commentaries

Read weekly Torah commentaries

Reflections on the Torah reading cycle

Learn more
Holiday Learning and Resources

Holiday Learning and Resources

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

Learn more
Join online classes

Join online classes

Live series with JTS teachers

Learn more
Listen to JTS podcasts

Listen to JTS podcasts

Learn on the go

Learn more
Watch lecture recordings

Watch lecture recordings

Videos of public events

Learn more
Nusah & Cantillation

Nusah & Cantillation

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

Learn more

Featured

Remember the Land

Remember the Land

May 8, 2026 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Spring is my favorite season because it draws me outdoors, enticing me to leave the city and enjoy the rivers, fields, and mountains of this glorious earth. Even near the city I often find myself in nature, biking along the Hudson and up the Palisades past waterfalls and nesting eagles. Returning to the land reminds me of the many blessings of our world, filling me with gratitude and awe. It also causes foreboding since the signs of stress on the natural systems that make our lives possible are everywhere evident. While this era of anthropogenic climate change may be new, the concern that human conduct could lead to ruin and exile from the earth is found already in our Torah portion.

Read More
Baseball (A Jewish American Pastime) 

Baseball (A Jewish American Pastime) 

May 4, 2026 By Robert Harris | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment”   Download Sources With Dr. Robert A. Harris, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, JTS Baseball has long been called America’s pastime—but what happens when we read the game through the lens of philosophy, theology, halacha and aggadah? This session explores the striking parallels between rabbinic interpretation and […]

Read More
Holy Frustration

Holy Frustration

May 1, 2026 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Emor

Like much of Leviticus, Parashat Emor opens with yet more of these rules. But now the Torah needs to acknowledge that even when everything is in the right place, there is still death. What’s a priest to do when tragedy strikes? “Speak [Emor] to the priests, the sons of Aaron,” God tells Moses, “and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him” (Lev. 21:1). In order to stay pure, priests are limited in terms of when they can come near a dead body; even though they may mourn the death of another, the Torah says that they can only be near the corpse of a close relative. After a few terse verses about mourning practices, the Torah enumerates further rules that are meant to keep the priests and High Priest pure, with the upshot being that a priest is “holy to their God” (21:7).

Read More
How to Be Holy

How to Be Holy

Apr 24, 2026 By Raymond Scheindlin | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim

This week, we read two parashiyot from Leviticus: Aharei Mot and Kedoshim. Taken together, they cover five clearly defined topics. Aharei Mot deals with the rituals of the high priest on Yom Kippur; regulations governing the slaughter of animals for food and sacrifice; and the prohibition of various sexual relations, especially incest. This last subject is resumed at the end of Kedoshim. Between the two discussions of sexual relations is the famous Chapter 19, which opens Kedoshim. This chapter stands out from the rest of our double parashah—in fact, from the rest of the book of Leviticus. It is a reprieve from the seemingly endless ritual instructions, most of which are no longer applicable, that make up the bulk of the book; and, though Chapter 19 does include some important ritual instructions, it is mostly devoted to the kind of rules for life that should govern every well-organized society, rules that people of most cultures and religions have tried to inculcate for everyone’s benefit.

Read More
Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Apr 17, 2026 By Joy Ladin | Commentary | Metzora | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh | Tazria

Most benei mitzvah would do anything to avoid having to talk about Parashat Tazria-Metzora, a section of the Torah that focuses communal attention on intimate changes in human bodies. In Leviticus 13, God orders Israelites to notice and monitor intimate changes in one another’s bodies—menstruation, discharges, eruptions, inflammations, hair growth, “swelling, rash, discoloration,” and so on. For example, Leviticus 13:2 commands:

Read More

SUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS

Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.