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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageSacred 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 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?
Shemini 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 MorePetition or Protest
Aug 30, 2024 By Adam Zagoria-Moffet | Commentary | Re'eh | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Our Sages saw Hannah as trying to trap God into offering blessing, and they interpreted the same from another unlikely context, one that also occurs during this month’s Torah readings. We read about the apparently bizarre mitzvah of shilu’ah haken, the sending away of the mother bird. Deut. 22:6–7 is the sole description of this shockingly precise mitzvah: “If you happen upon a bird’s nest while on the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, whether with chicks in it or still-unhatched eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the eggs or chicks, you shall not take the mother with the young. Instead, chase away the mother bird and take the young—in order that you be well and your days long.”
Read MoreWhat is the Torah, Actually? Preparing for Shavuot
Jun 3, 2024 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shavuot
We’ve heard its stories; we’ve heard it chanted in synagogue; we’ve seen it hoisted in the air displaying handwritten ink on parchment; we’ve taken classes on it. But what, actually, is the Torah? A law code? A history book? An ancient novel? A saga? None of these categorizations quite fits. In this session, we consider what defines the distinctive genre of the Torah, where this genre comes from, how it reappears in Jewish culture over the ages—and what addressing these questions can teach us about the Jewish religion.
Read MoreFrom Symposium to Seder: How The Rabbinic Adoption of Roman Party Conventions Became Our Passover Seder
Apr 15, 2024 By Robert Harris | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Pesah
In the years following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish observance of Passover underwent a seismic shift. In lieu of the now impossible sacrificial Temple ritual, the rabbis adopted the Roman symposium in order to create a new type of festival meal, one that was rooted in new rituals and intellectual discourse. Together we explore what led to the rabbinic decision to conduct the Seder in this way, rather than opting for a different way to commemorate Passover, such as instructing the Jewish people to perform the sacrifice in their homes. We also examine some of the questions and answers in the Haggadah which are central features of the Roman symposium and core to our Haggadah.
Read MoreAcross 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 […]
Read MoreAmalek and the Torah of Purim
Mar 22, 2024 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Purim
The Purim most of us celebrate is one that marks a moment of redemption – when a descendent of Amalek tried and failed to destroy the Jews. It is the holiday that best encapsulates the sentiment “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”. And yet, Jewish thinkers have also understood Purim as a day that touches upon the cornerstone of Judaism itself: the covenant between God and Israel via the acceptance of the Torah. How is this connection formed? What is the relationship between Torah and Purim? And, in a calendar already chock full of holidays celebrating the Torah, what place is left for Purim?
Read MoreHagar’s Tears and Ours: Choosing Connection over Despair
Nov 3, 2023 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Commentary | Vayera | Rosh Hashanah
Genesis offers us narratives of our biblical ancestors struggling with many of the deepest challenges that we may face in our lives, whether in our familial or interpersonal relationships or as we face the uncertainty, fear, and loss of living in a broken world. Throughout the Genesis cycle we encounter families who accept the fallacy that there is not enough blessing to go around, and thus make terrible mistakes. Parents choose favorite children, siblings are pitted against each other as rivals. This year we return to these stories shattered by the horrific violence of the October 7th massacres, as we see a new and terrifying chapter unfold in the primal conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. We know that there is enough suffering and trauma and outrage to go around. We wonder if there is enough compassion or enough hope to carry us through this time.
Read MoreDancing with Torah
Oct 6, 2023 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Simhat Torah
Judaism’s richness comes from having two Torahs—the Written Torah [Torah shebikhtav], which Moses receives from God, and which we will soon celebrate on Simhat Torah,and the Oral Torah [Torah shebe’al peh], the Torah of commentary that extends from the ancient rabbis to today’s rabbis, scholars, and students of Judaism’s sacred texts and traditions.
Read MoreWhy We Gather
Sep 29, 2023 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Sukkot
This past motzei Shabbat marked 38 weeks since the demonstrations in Israel against the judicial overhaul began. Once again my social media accounts lit up with photos of the streets of Tel Aviv engulfed in crowds, powerful images of democracy in action. I find the sight of so many people gathering to be awe-inspiring and uplifting, and in a ceremony associated with the holiday of Sukkot, I have found some clues as to why witnessing and joining such gatherings can be so moving.
Read MoreHow Shall It End?
Sep 26, 2023 By Gordon Tucker | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shemini Atzeret
The Torah presents Shemini Atzeret—the “Eighth Day of Assembly”—as an add-on to the seven days of the Sukkot pilgrimage festival. The lulav is set aside, and the sukkah vacated. So, is it a “holiday about nothing”? Or can we see in it a most meaningful coda to the Days of Awe, in which we learn profound lessons about endings? Through a close reading of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), the Yizkor prayer, and other significant texts, we explore answers to these questions.
Read MoreWeren’t We Just Forgiven?
Sep 22, 2023 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Shabbat Shuvah
On all other days, this blessing is a powerful reminder of the countless missteps that befall us every day of our lives. And each day, by asking God for forgiveness, we are being conscious and intentional about the types of people we wish to be. We recount—then we recommit. But on motzei Yom Kippur, this blessing makes little sense. Is it possible that I committed a sin in the last thirty seconds since the gates closed at the end of the Ne’ilah service? Shouldn’t this be my most blameless moment of the entire year, and yet, here I am, beating my breast and beseeching God for forgiveness yet again?
Read MoreThe Yom Kippur Avodah as a Template for Spiritual Practice
Sep 19, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Yom Kippur
It is generally thought that the Yom Kippur Haftarah taken from Isaiah is supposed to be read as being in tension with the Torah reading from Aharei Mot (Leviticus 16). While the Torah reading focuses almost exclusively on the rites performed by the High Priest in the Temple on Yom Kippur, Isaiah declaims that the ritual piety without social justice and Shabbat observance is nothing more than worthless hypocrisy.
While this observation has merit, it can encourage the view that ritual has no ethical or spiritual content. In this session we see that the Avodah, the Temple rites, can indeed serve as a model for a life of spiritual discipline.
Read MoreClay in the Potter’s Hand
Sep 15, 2023 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Yom Kippur
Several years back, my wife and I took a summer vacation on Block Island, a 17-mile sanctuary of beaches, water, and biking off the southern coast of Rhode Island. We checked into a lovely bed and breakfast and made our way down the path towards our secluded beach cottage. The room was tiny, but a […]
Read MoreThe Torah’s Stories—and Our Own
Sep 15, 2023 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
During these Yamim Noraim—these Days of Awe—we might expect to be poring over biblical texts that exhort us to act honestly, compassionately, and justly: the Ten Commandments perhaps, or the Holiness Code of Leviticus 19. Instead, the Torah portions we read as we usher in the New Year are stories that are filled with unbearable pain—first, in Genesis 21, Abraham banishes his wife Hagar and their son Ishmael, and then, in Genesis 22, he almost sacrifices his son Isaac. As we gather to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, why do we hear stories that are filled with themes of alienation, betrayal, and loss?
Read MoreThe Torah of the New Year
Sep 6, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Shemini Atzeret | Yom Kippur
Join JTS faculty for a close reading of several of the biblical texts that we read during the fall holiday season. Discover new insights into these readings and reflect on what meanings they hold for us today.
Read MoreExile and Return as a Spiritual Paradigm
Sep 6, 2023 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
The haftarot of the High Holidays link personal teshuvah with the return to the land of Israel. When we hold these two returnings together the spiritual and communal dimensions of teshuvah come into powerful focus. We explore the exiles of our soul and pathways of return in this season of teshuvah.
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