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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageCan You Spell-check the Tanakh?
Nov 15, 2024 By David Zev Moster | Commentary | Vayera
There is a puzzling word in this week’s parashah: מֵחֲטוֹ “from sinning” (Genesis 20:6). God appears to Abimelekh in a dream and says, “I myself have kept you from sinning (מֵחֲטוֹ) against me [with Sarah].” The word מֵחֲטוֹ is unusual because it should be spelled with an alef, either as מֵחֲטֹא in 1 Samuel 12:23 or as מֵחֲטוֹא in Psalm 39:2. We know there should be an alef because the Hebrew root חטא “to sin” appears 603 times in the Tanakh and has an alef 99.2% of the time. So, is the missing alef of מֵחֲטוֹ a spelling error? It depends on who you ask.
Read MoreHenrietta Szold’s Zionism and Ours
Nov 11, 2024 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Henrietta Szold, JTS’s first female student, was the most learned Jewish woman in America in the first half of the last century. Attracted to the Zionist dream as a teen in Baltimore, she channeled her intellect and love for the Jewish people into Hadassah. Defying gender norms and expectations, she transformed the way Jewish women thought about their capabilities and the way many Jews approach their relationship to Zionism.
Read MoreHow Can We Be a Blessing?
Nov 8, 2024 By Cantor Rabbi Shoshi Levin Goldberg | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
I have often pondered the meaning of the expression that a deceased person’s memory should be a blessing or will be for a blessing. Proverbs 10:7 teaches that “the name of a righteous person is invoked in blessing”—זֵ֣כֶר צַ֭דִּיק לִבְרָכָ֑ה . Originally, this likely referred to invoking the name of a well-known righteous person as an exemplar and conduit for our own blessing. The Babylonian Talmud also teaches (Kiddushin 31b) that after the death of a parent, we may continue to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring our parents, and by extension other beloved relatives and friends, by saying “zikhronam livrakhah,” “may their memory be for a blessing.”
Read MoreSass Brown – Senior Sermon (RS ’25)
Nov 6, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Lekh Lekha
Sass Brown Senior Sermon for Lekh Lekha
Read MoreLiving With Difference
Nov 1, 2024 By Naomi Kalish | Commentary | Noah
Is the story of the Tower of Babel about human unity, or about human diversity? At the critical point when the Torah transitions from the story of Noah and its universal themes to the particular family of Abraham, the Tower of Babel conveys ambivalence about both unity and diversity. In doing so, it provides us with a model for how we can navigate our own complex social dynamics, especially in times of crisis and trauma.
Read MoreGod’s Partners in Torah
Oct 25, 2024 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Bereishit
The ancient rabbinic Sages taught that the people of Israel must consider themselves, שותפיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא במעשה בראשית “God’s partner in the work of creation” (BT, Shabbat 119b and elsewhere). Often overlooked is that reading the Torah’s opening (בראשית ברא אלהים…, which I am deliberatively leaving untranslated for now) demands a similar type of partnership. The reason for this is that the opening of the Torah contains impenetrably difficult syntax. Let us consider the very first verse: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. If we were to translate this verse literally, and absolutely retaining the order of the words, we would understand it along these lines: “In the beginning of, he-created God (did), heavens and earth . . . ” This is a far cry from the affecting cadence of the majestic King James Bible’s translation, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The question is, given the difficult syntax, what does this verse “actually” mean?
Read MoreRebecca Gallin – Senior Sermon (RS ’25)
Oct 22, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Bereishit
Rebecca Gallin’s Senior Sermon on Bereishit
Read MoreLessons from Kohelet: If There Is Nothing New Under the Sun, How Do We Solve Our Gigantic Contemporary Problems?
Oct 16, 2024 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Sukkot
Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is read during Sukkot, and at this moment I’m finding it to be precisely the wisdom I need. When I feel worried about the many crises we face, the idea that there is nothing new under the sun can be comforting. To me it means we have what we need to address the problem. We need to have humility and consider the tools God has given us and those humans have developed over time. Our main task is to find the right formula. Though breakthrough discoveries and new inventions exist, often what we seek is the right old tool in the proper configuration. It is a question of titration.
Read MoreMore Than the Motions
Oct 13, 2024 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Yom Kippur
The haftarah, from Isaiah chapter 57, was chosen precisely to prevent the type of self-congratulatory behavior that we humans exhibit when we play the “dutiful child,” while simultaneously managing to miss our larger purpose.
Read MoreSacred Words in Liturgy and Life
Oct 11, 2024 By Shira Billet | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Human communication, the commitment to taking words seriously and to viewing the words we write and speak as serious commitments, has become even more imperiled in an age where our words are mediated through the technologies of social media, artificial intelligence, and the crippling social phenomena of political polarization and widespread mistrust.
Read MoreHope Through Tears
Oct 4, 2024 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
The haftarah for the second day of Rosh Hashanah echoes both the violence and the promise of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, as Israel is described as “the people escaped from the sword” (Jer. 31:2), while God promises, “There is hope for your future—your children shall return to their country” (31:17).
Read MorePour Out Your Hearts
Oct 3, 2024 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Hannah provides a powerful paradigm of prayer for us on these Days of Awe. Are we concerned with how we may appear when we are in prayer?
Read MoreCrying With God
Oct 1, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
In an essay some years ago, the Israeli teacher and poet Sara Friedland ben Arza asked us to focus on the prayer Hayom Harat Olam (Today the World Stands as at Birth) in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. She asks why, in a religious tradition that moved away so notably from ancient mythological motifs, is there a rare reference to the “birthing” of the world? And why is that short prayer placed just after the shofar
is blown?
Where Did Moses Go—and Why?
Sep 27, 2024 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh | Rosh Hashanah
Keli Yekar (Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, 1550–1619, Prague) articulates our question as follows: “All the commentators were challenged by this “going” because the text does not mention where he [Moses] went . . . ” But before I get to his teshuvah (repentance)-centered interpretation and how it can inform our own behavior as we approach the Days of Awe, I will share the explanations of three other commentators.
Read MoreShemini Atzeret, Rain, & Resurrection
Sep 23, 2024 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shemini Atzeret
In this session, we explore the unique themes of the Shemini Atzeret and hold them in dialogue with this moment of brokenness, the weight of war, the complexities of peoplehood, and the ongoing need for healing and rebirth.
Read MoreShattering Our Idols
Sep 20, 2024 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tavo | Rosh Hashanah
Judaism tantalizes the senses with the sights, sounds and fragrant smells that characterize its observance. Rosh Hashanah is certainly one of those times when we are overwhelmed by the richness of Jewish symbolism. At the heart of our New Year observances, however, lies the piercing cry of the shofar. What is the meaning of the shofar?
Read MoreRepentence and the Mystical ‘Rope’: The Divine/Human Relationship in Jewish Thought
Sep 16, 2024 By Shira Billet | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
One of the most striking images of the divine-human relationship in Jewish thought is the kabbalistic image of a rope or cord that extends from God in the heavens into the soul of the human being. We explore a diverse array of Jewish thinkers over the centuries who have found this metaphor meaningful, especially in times of challenge and suffering, giving them hope to continue to strive to become closer to God. In the context of the High Holiday season, we give special attention to connections between this metaphor and themes and liturgies of the High Holiday season.
Read MoreSha‘ar Bat Rabim
Sep 16, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Sha‘ar Bat Rabim is an extraordinary manuscript/printed-book hybrid that vividly illustrates the concept of the “lives of books.“ This volume, originally printed in Venice, serves as a prayer book for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur according to the Ashkenazic rite.
Read MoreIs Modesty Still Relevant in the Twenty-First Century?
Sep 13, 2024 By Emmanuel Bloch | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
Modesty is hardly a popular concept among liberal-minded Jews, nor within the Western world in general. The reasons for this are multiple. Historically, modesty has been disproportionately applied to women, often as a means of controlling female behavior and sexuality. It is often associated with patriarchy, control, and the suppression of individual freedoms. Modesty is frequently perceived to be a negation of individuality, body positivity, and self-expression.
Read MoreBetween the Lines: Torah and Technology
Sep 10, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
In this volume, Torah and Technology: Circuits, Cells, and the Sacred Path, Rabbi Daniel Nevins draws on 3,000 years of biblical and rabbinic texts to respond to pressing questions of contemporary life. These essays are presented in the form of responsa, or rabbinic guidance for Jews committed to practicing halakhah, but they are also of interest to any person who confronts ethical quandaries in our technocentric times.
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