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Words Fail Me

Jan 16, 2026 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Va'era

That is the way the Zohar (the foundational text of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism) understands our exile in Egypt: as the exile of speech, a failure of words. In this reading, the breakdown of speech is both cause and effect of our enslavement, while healing and redeeming speech—finding our voice—is both the process and hallmark of redemption.

Beyond the Sermon: What the High Holiday Prayers Offer and Demand

Sep 8, 2025 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

We begin our High Holiday webinar series with guidance for how to engage more meaningfully in the prayer part of High Holiday services. Famously long and repetitive, services on these days may sometimes feel overwhelming, boring, or even alienating. In this session, Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, Director of the Block / Kolker Center for Spiritual Arts at JTS, offered practical strategies for participating more fully, and insight into what these services really ask of us and what they offer—especially in tumultuous uncertain times. Along the way, Rabbi Uhrbach will share some of her favorite passages in the Conservative Movement’s Machzor Lev Shalem, for which she was a member of the Editorial Committee. Whether you’re a seasoned prayergoer or showing up with hesitation, this session will help you begin the High Holiday season with openness, intention, and agency.

Who Shall Cross: A Talmudic Reimagining of the Passover Narrative

Mar 24, 2025 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Pesah

In preparation for your seder, Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, Director of the Block / Kolker Center for Spiritual Arts, led a thought-provoking session, exploring a Talmudic story that reflects key themes of Passover, raising profound questions about free will, obligation, and inclusion. How do we determine our purpose? Who are our fellow travelers, and what do we owe them? This discussion offers new insights to bring to your Passover table.

Communicating Across Divides

Dec 9, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Argument is essential to Jewish life—it forms the basis of the Talmud and the classic Jewish joke about two Jews, three opinions. Yet today the challenge of talking across differences often seems insurmountable.

Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, director of the Block Kolker Center for Spiritual Life, shares insight into how to communicate with those whose opinion differs from yours. She will include tactics for creating structures that enable civility and explore the traps to avoid in your community.

The Journey

Jun 21, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

In other words, the path forward is never clear, and God isn’t a divine GPS. Revelation and faith shape our vision of where we want to go; they offer a compass pointing to true north, orienting us in the general direction of that vision. But to get there, we need maps, road signs, traffic signals, and human guides with a variety of expertise—religious and secular.

Across the Divide: Tips for Hard Conversations at the Seder Table

Apr 15, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Pesah

Many of us are approaching seder this year with concern about seemingly unbridgeable divides about Israel. It’s tempting to try to avoid difficult conversations, but Passover isn’t merely a holiday of gratitude for a past redemption—it calls us to move toward transformation and freedom internally and externally, individually and collectively, especially with those closest to […]

The Words Upon Our Hearts

Jul 28, 2023 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

In this week’s parashah we encounter anew perhaps the most well-known words in our tradition, the first paragraph of the Shema. In these verses, we are commanded to place before us at all times words of Torah. They are to be in our hearts, in our mouths, on our heads and hands, and at the entrances to our homes.

Indeed, according to the rabbinic tradition, the commandment in verse 6 to place these words on our hearts is intended to teach us how to fulfill the foundational commandment to “love God…”

Dreaming of Being Balaam

Jun 30, 2023 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

The story of the heathen prophet Balaam—hired by Moabite king Balak ben Tzippor to curse the people Israel—is altogether strange. It concerns events happening outside the Israelite camp and seemingly unknown to them, characters we’ve not yet met, and a talking donkey. Its tone ranges from burlesquely funny to surreal.

It Passes and We Stay

Apr 21, 2023 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Metzora | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh | Tazria

The double parashiyot of Tazria and Metzora are devoted in their entireties to the Biblical notion of tumah, usually translated as “impurity.” In them, we learn three of the major sources of tumah: childbirth (Lev. 12); a condition known as tzara’at, which can manifest on skin, clothing, or the walls of one’s house (Lev. 13–14); and bodily secretions (Lev. 15). The two other primary sources of tumah are touching or carrying the carcasses of certain animals (Lev. 11) and contact with a human corpse (Num. 19).

But what is the essential nature of tumah, and what does it have to do with Emily Dickinson’s poem?

Purim Eve On (and Off) Broadway!

Mar 16, 2022 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Purim

Watch the parody songs: View the whole service: For Ma’ariv (Evening Service) and Megillat Esther (Book of Esther), we will be using the Rabbinical Assembly’s newly published volume featuring a new translation of Esther by Dr. Pamela Barmash, an alumna of JTS’s Rabbinical School, and the translation of the evening service from Siddur Lev Shalem. […]

Kollot Rabbinic Literature, 2021-22

Nov 4, 2021 By Jan Uhrbach

November 4, 2021 December 2, 2021 January 13, 2022Download Sources February 3, 2022Download Sources (Page 3) March 24, 2022Download Sources April 28, 2022Download Sources May 12, 2022Download Sources

Choosing to Choose

Sep 3, 2021 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Nitzavim | Rosh Hashanah

The rabbis taught that Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world, or by some accounts, the sixth day of creation, the day that humanity was created. Liturgically, the day is seen as more than just an anniversary. We pray “Hayom Harat Olam,” today the world is born, suggesting that the world, humanity, and each of us individually, are created “today,” every Rosh Hashanah.

Like It—Or Not? The Existential Tension of Similarity and Difference

Apr 26, 2021 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Foundational Jewish texts point to a series of irresolvable dilemmas or polarities at the heart of the human condition, among them the way in which each of us is both like, and unlike, all others. How does this fundamental tension manifest in our personal relationships, our collective challenges, and our religious expressions, and what wisdom does our tradition offer to help us manage, and even grow from, our differences?

Strangers to Ourselves

Dec 18, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Miketz

The Joseph narrative contains a striking number of contranyms—words that simultaneously convey opposite meanings. Why?

Contranyms are a natural linguistic expression of the Torah’s insistence that a “both/and” perspective is essential to understanding deep truths, other people, and ourselves. The portrayal of Joseph is a prime example.

Kollot Rabbinic Literature, 2020-21

Nov 12, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach

The Torah’s Take on Happiness

Nov 2, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Moses’ final speech concludes with a declaration of the happiness of being a Jew: “Happy are you, O Israel!” But does the Torah describe any individual as happy? While the pursuit of happiness, as expressed in the Torah and its interpretations? Is the American ideal of happiness a Jewish concept at all?

Faith, Forgiveness and Prayer: Finding Meaning in the Days of Awe

Aug 31, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

A series of online classes with JTS faculty and staff

God of the Faithful, God of the Faithless: Belief and Doubt in Prayer

Aug 17, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Do we need “faith” in order to pray? Can synagogue services be worthwhile and meaningful even if we’re not sure what we believe? We are hardly the first generation to struggle with contradictions among our intellectual beliefs, traditional Jewish liturgy, and the act of prayer. What do biblical and rabbinic texts about prayer, and the prayerbook itself, teach us about these conflicts, and how can they help us connect to prayer even in times of doubt or faithlessness?

First Failures: Falling Apart and Starting Over in the Book of Genesis

Aug 10, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The first book of the Torah is filled with stories of crisis, brokenness, disappointments, and failure, both human and Divine. What religious meaning can we derive from the Torah’s focus on failure rather than success? Through a close look at some of its key narratives, we will mine the Book of Genesis for strategies for living through difficult times, and as the grounding of a hopeful and resilient theology.