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New Generation, Old Leaders

Jun 13, 2025 By Ute Steyer | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

To paraphrase Moses’s meltdown in Numbers 11:11–15, “Lord! I’m so done with them! I can’t take it anymore. These people are nothing but a bunch of whingeing losers.” Yet the People are doing what they have been doing since day one of the Exodus: complaining. About the lack of water, the lack of food, and now the lack of meat. So why is Moses losing his temper so completely this time?

The Problem with Priests

Jun 6, 2025 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Naso

Modern Judaism has a problem with the priesthood. The notion of hereditary holiness—that one segment of the Jewish people is set apart from others, given ceremonial privileges, and invited to bless the people—conflicts with our egalitarian ethos.

Counting as a Spiritual Practice: Bemidbar and the Road to Shavuot

May 30, 2025 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Bemidbar | Shavuot

Every year, without fail, we read Parashat Bemidbar just before the festival of Shavuot. This liturgical pairing is more than a scheduling convenience; it offers a profound insight into the spiritual architecture of Jewish time. Bemidbar begins with a count: “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans, by ancestral houses, listing the names, every male, head by head” (Num. 1:2; בְּמִסְפַּר שֵׁמוֹת לְגֻלְגְּלֹתָם). This act of counting seems administrative on the surface, but like so much in the Torah, its spiritual depth lies beneath.

Grappling with Slavery in Parashat Behar

May 23, 2025 By Marjorie Lehman | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Parashat Behar is filled with powerful messages about building a just and compassionate society, emphasizing commandments to care for the land, support the poor, and treat hired workers with fairness and dignity. However, I find that Parashat Behar stirs up more discomfort than ethical inspiration. I am always struck by the difficult distinction it makes between Israelites and non-Israelites with regard to slavery. With the themes of Passover and the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian bondage in my mind, I find it hard to reconcile that Leviticus 25 permits the enslavement of non-Israelites while protecting Israelites from such a fate.

Who Belongs?

May 16, 2025 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Emor

Who is the Other? This question, which is asked more and more often in our world, is not often easy to answer. Can one choose to be part of a community? Are people who were once outsiders ever fully welcomed as insiders? In Judaism, these questions are especially important. While Judaism has categories to define and even praise non-Jews, opting into the Jewish community is not simple. However, the Talmud tells us that once someone converts to Judaism, we are supposed to treat them as any other Jew. Unfortunately, this is a mission in which many communities fail. This failure can have significant consequences, as we see in this week’s parashah, Emor.

The Torah’s Prescription for Healing

May 2, 2025 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

Given the discomfort, discomfiture, and uncertainty that even mild skin eruptions can cause us nowadays, it should come as no surprise that they were a source of anxiety in ancient times. In this week’s parashah, that anxiety finds expression amidst an array of concerns about the human body and its functions. The purity laws in Leviticus 11 through 15, which digress from the narrative flow of the book,[i] are concerned with diet (chapter 11), reproduction (chapter 12), and bodily integrity (chapters 13 to 15, including property as an extension of the person).

Six Takes on a Leader’s Attributes

Apr 25, 2025 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Shemini

Identifying the textual problem: commentators have noticed that the phrase “draw near unto the altar” seems superfluous. If Aaron is being commanded to “perform the service of the sin offering,” is it not obvious that he will need to approach the altar? This textual issue will serve as the basis for our consideration of the attributes of a leader based on our examination of the comments of the traditional Jewish commentaries.

The Bones We Carry

Apr 18, 2025 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Pesah

Consider the scene: after over 200 years of slavery, the Israelites, at long last, are preparing to depart. They are frantically gathering their belongings—gold, silver, all their earthly possessions—and scrambling to prepare food for their journey. In this urgent rush, Moses, rather than attending to the needs of the people and their immediate concerns, embarks on a singular mission: to retrieve the bones of Joseph, fulfilling a centuries-old promise. It begs the question: Why, in the midst of these epic events, does the Torah highlight this seemingly minor detail? What is the significance of Moses’s dedication to this task, his resolute commitment to honoring a promise made generations ago?

Can We Sanctify Incivility?

Apr 11, 2025 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav

Parashat Tzav opens with instructions for the olah, the offering (primarily the twice-daily sacrifice) that is entirely burnt on the altar. The ninth chapter of the talmudic tractate Zevahim, notes that the word olah, which means “ascending,” can be understood both as denoting an ascent to heaven from earth, and equally, an ascent up the ramp of the altar to the place from which it is offered. The double meaning gave rise to a principle that is articulated in the opening mishnah of that ninth chapter. But some background is necessary before citing that principle.

Who is Liable?

Apr 4, 2025 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Vayikra

The opening parashah of Leviticus comprises regulations for the performance of sacrifices. Of these, the most complicated are the hattat and the asham offerings, discussed in chapters 4 and 5. As James Watts observes in the best English-language commentary to appear since Milgrom’s,[1] these chapters have been “the subject of an especially contentious history of interpretation.” The reason is the ambiguity of the biblical text, with its conjoining of “sin” and “guilt,” and the absence of a clear distinction between actual (objective) guilt and (subjective) guilty feelings.

The Give and Take of Strength

Mar 28, 2025 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Pekudei | Shabbat Hahodesh

Rituals of closure are common in both the secular and religious realms. An example of the first is the sounding of retreat and the lowering of the flag marking the end of the official duty day on military installations. An instance of the second is the siyyum, a liturgical ritual and festive meal that is occasioned by […]

Sacred Gifts and the Holiness of Diversity

Mar 21, 2025 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Commentary | Shabbat Parah | Vayak-hel

Parashat Vayak-hel demands that we notice the details, recounting with exquisite specificity the ornamentation and beautification of the Miskhan and the sacred vestments. Among all of the parshiyot detailing the construction of the Mishkan, Vayak-hel is particularly notable in lifting up the sacred contributions of women and of the artists and artisans. It also expands […]

The Day Is Short, but Our Story Is Long

Mar 14, 2025 By Yael Landman | Commentary | Ki Tissa | Purim

Within the book of Exodus, certain details link the golden calf story with the account of revelation at Sinai. Mount Sinai is the site of the Israelites forming a covenant with God, but it is also the site of them violating that covenant. It’s where God tells Moses to go up and receive the stone tablets, and where Moses carries down those tablets before he witnesses the Israelites partying and hurls the tablets to the ground. The word kol (which we might translate “sound,” “noise,” or “thunder”) recurs in the context of God’s revelation, only to recur in the account of the golden calf with respect to the Israelites’ ill-advised festivities. In these ways, the golden calf story is inextricably connected to the initial moment of revelation and lawgiving at Sinai, even as it threatens to destroy that covenantal foundation.

Anina Dassa – Senior Sermon (’25)

Mar 12, 2025 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Ki Tissa

Ki Tissa

Remembering Who We Are

Mar 7, 2025 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Shabbat Zakhor

The coming Shabbat is designated as Shabbat Zakhor. The word is quite prevalent in Jewish literature and thought, and its basic meaning is generally translated by the words “memory,” “remembrance,” or “memorial.” And as a people we seem always to be remembering, and exhorting others to remember. It’s at the core of what we believe to be essential in Jewish education. As Isaac Bashevis Singer once remarked: “Jews suffer from many diseases, but amnesia is not one of them.

The Golden Crown of Parenting

Feb 28, 2025 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Shabbat Shekalim | Terumah

These are architectural details of the Ark of the Covenant, the central element of the Holy of Holies, where the tablets of the Ten Commandments will be held and carried. The Ark has a covering of gold, inside and out, and a crown of gold. Four gold rings are attached to it, two to each side wall, and through these rings poles of acacia wood are inserted, which remain in place, even when the Ark is at rest. To what may this Ark be compared? To parents. How so?

Don’t Be the Terumah

Feb 21, 2025 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Mishpatim

Last week JTS, The Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue Youth, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Camp Ramah, the Jewish Youth Climate Movement Powered by Adamah, and Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, DC, launched Ruchot, the first ever advocacy and lobbying training for Conservative Movement teens. We gathered as an erev rav (mixed multitude) of 36 teens from 11 states (and one Canadian), 7 rabbinical students, 6 rabbis, three youth director staff, and an Israeli shaliah. 

The Confusion of Revelation

Feb 14, 2025 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Yitro

We have now come to Parashat Yitro in our annual Torah reading cycle, arguably the most significant sedra in the Humash. While Parashat Bereishit has the mythic power of the creation stories and Parashat Beshallah includes the narrative of the Exodus from Egypt and the miraculous crossing of the Sea, it is in Yitro that […]

Ariel Dunat – Senior Sermon (’25)

Feb 12, 2025 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Yitro

Yitro

Aggressor and Aggrieved

Feb 7, 2025 By Dr. Phil Keisman | Commentary | Beshallah | Pesah

The Israelites find themselves in a new position in Parashat Beshallah. After generations of suffering as slaves to the pharaohs, and after decades of uncertainty about how and when their suffering might end, the Israelites are now staring backwards as their oppressors die violently.

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