JTS Torah Commentary

The Whole Journey

Jul 10, 2026 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

School has ended, and with it comes a familiar flood of feelings. As my own children close out another year, I feel grateful and a little sad, eager for the summer and already nostalgic for the days that just were. My family lives in Israel, where this year those feelings have been especially layered.Transitions press us up against the fullness of what has been, even as they pull us toward what is coming.

This is exactly where B’nei Yisrael finds themselves at the opening of Matot-Masei. With forty years of wandering behind them and the land of Canaan visible across the Jordan, they stand at a great threshold. And it is at precisely this moment that the Torah pauses, looks backward, and does something unexpected:

Pinehas and the Three Weeks

Jul 3, 2026 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Pinehas | Tishah Be'av

Most years, Parashat Pinehas is read near the beginning of the Three Weeks. While the timing before or after the Seventeenth of Tammuz shifts, the proximity is worth noticing. This minor fast day commemorates the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls before the destruction of the Second Temple, marks the beginning of the traditional period of mourning that culminates on Tish‘ah Be-Av. Both the parashah and the season that follow are unusually concerned with numbers. Pinehas features a wide range of narratives including the reward granted to Pinehas, the daughters of Zelophehad, and the appointment of Joshua as Moses’ successor. Yet counting appears again and again. A census records the size of the tribes. The inheritance laws depend upon the distribution of land among those tribes. By the end of the parashah, the Torah has turned almost entirely to the calendar, laying out the offerings for Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals.

Deuteronomy and the Separation of Powers  

Jun 29, 2026 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment”   Download Sources With Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, JTS The core of democracy as understood by the framers of the United States Constitution understood it was not just majority rule, but the separation of powers and the rule of law. […]

Who Sees the Truth, and Who Speaks It?

Jun 26, 2026 By Loraine Enlow | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

Long-time New York subway riders are familiar with the slogan, “See something, say something.” Balaam’s story in this week’s parashah is closer to: “Say something, because you didn’t see something.” After all, “See something, say something” assumes that the hard part is speaking up, but Parashat Balak suggests the hardest part may be noticing at all, especially when Balaam, the professional seer, can’t see the angel in the road that his donkey does. This reversal of who notices (and who misses what’s right in front of them) is what draws me into this passage. As a scholar working primarily on medieval Jewish and Christian biblical commentaries, I’m especially interested in noticing how texts travel, how communities guard them, and how outsiders can sometimes help shed light on a tradition. Biblical interpretation is itself, in a sense, the discipline of noticing ‘angels in the road,’ learning to see what is already present right in front of you in the text.

One Nation Under God? Heschel, Niebuhr, King and the Intersection of Religion and Politics in America

Jun 22, 2026 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment”   Download Recommended Resources With Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor Emeritus; Professor of Jewish Thought, JTS, and E.J. Dionne, Journalist, Harriman Chair in American Governance, Brookings Institute A frank and wide-ranging conversation between two admirers of these great religious leaders  about the fateful linkage of politics to prophecy in America from the […]