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Ethics in Business

May 23, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

When in Israel last, I needed to buy a pair of tefillin as a bar–mitzva gift. Deep inside Mea Shearim, my son and I finally found the shop that had been recommended to us, a hole in the wall on the main street, that specialized in tefillin. The space was musty and untidy and cluttered with religious books and artifacts. Behind the counter presided an elderly and diminutive couple, whose vigor belied their years. They bounded from one end of the counter to the other to serve an unending flow of customers.

Israel’s Destiny

May 16, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor | Lag Ba'omer

Jews mark the period between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot by the counting of the omer. For a period of 49 days, beginning on 16 Nisan, for us in the diaspora the night of the second Seder, we count each day at the evening service (the start of a new day in the Jewish calendar) in terms of the days and weeks that have passed. This brief ceremony opens with the verse in this week’s parasha that sets forth the prescription: “And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation – the day after the sabbath – you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week – fifty days (Leviticus 23:15–16).”

Jews and Medicine

May 2, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

Our family seders always border on a medical convention. My sister, Hanna, who did not live to celebrate Passover with us this year, had three children, all of whom are doctors and all of whom married doctors (well, one is married to a veterinarian, but that’s close enough). The pattern is not an accident. Hanna was by training a nurse and her first husband, Calvin, was an obstetrician. In the mid-1950s, they settled in Vineland, New Jersey. Over the next 20 years, before his untimely death in 1974, he delivered half the babies born there, including the three Schorsch children. For both Hanna and Calvin, medicine was a calling which saturated the conversation around the dinner table. Their children grew up in the loving presence of medical paragons.

Seeds of Jewish Identity

Apr 10, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot

The house is back to normal. The flock of children and grandchildren which descended upon us for the start of the new year left after Yom Kippur. It was not the entire Schorsch family this time, but enough to thrill us and exhaust us. Missing were the Berkeley contingent with their brood of three children, just returned from two years in Israel. The twins from Chicago are now 2 ¹/_² and talking up a storm, while our granddaughter from Brooklyn has just passed the one-year mark and charms everyone with a smile and a giggle. Visits have a way of turning cousins into friends.

The Sin of Remaining Silent

Mar 28, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh | Vayikra

We don’t admit errors easily. There is probably nothing more difficult for us to say than “I’m sorry.” Each time we bring ourselves to do it, we acknowledge that we are less than perfect and far from infallible. Resistance wells up from the very depth of our being. How often have we been scene to the following Nietzschian dialogue: “‘I have done that?’ asks my memory. ‘I cannot have done that,’ says my pride and remains inexorable. Eventually memory yields.” Without a measure of self-awareness and courage, truth invariably falls prey to our psychological needs.

Why a Temple?

Mar 21, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

The final two readings this week, which close the book of Exodus, tell of the actual construction of the Tabernacle. In a leap year, with its additional month, we would have devoted one Shabbat to each parasha and read for the haftara a selection pertaining to Solomon’s construction of the First Temple. In fact, the two haftarot are sequential: I Kings 7:40-50 for Vayakhel and I Kings 7:51-8:21 for Pekuday. Thus the synagogue naturally associated the completion of Moses’s mobile sanctuary with the completion of Solomon’s permanent Temple in Jerusalem.

What Did We Receive at Sinai?

Mar 14, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa

At the end of the Torah reading in the synagogue, the scroll is spread and lifted so that everyone might see its hand-written script. Simultaneously, the congregation affirms out loud: “This is the Torah that Moses set before the people Israel; the Torah given by God, through Moses” (a composite of two verses, Deuteronomy 4:44 and a phrase repeated several times in the book of Numbers, 4:37,45; 9:23; 10:13). Having just finished a liturgical reenactment of the original national experience at Mount Sinai, we declare the text of this scroll to be the repository of that revelation.

Empathy for the Other

Feb 7, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beshallah | Pesah

It took God but six days to create the world; it took my mother at least twice that long to prepare for Passover. At the seder on the first night she would often doze contentedly from a mild case of exhaustion. Everything sparkled; nothing was out of place. The beauty of the table and the aromas coming from the kitchen attested to her toil and artistry. By turning ritual into a fine art, she enhanced the presence of God at our family seder.

Judaism and Reproductive Rights

Jan 28, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Mishpatim

At the end of August 1993, I joined some 100 religious leaders of a moderate stripe who were invited by the President and First Lady for breakfast at the White House. What gave the event an added dose of excitement for me was the good luck to be seated at the President’s table.

A Stranger to Israel

Jan 17, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemot

I find the figure of Moses endlessly fascinating. He is the founder of Israel and its greatest prophet, a sculptor who works with human life, transforming a clan into a nation, a motley multitude into a polity of high moral order. Seized by God, he labors to complete the social vision first glimpsed by Abraham. As his ancestor abjured the religion of Mesopotamia, he rejects the religion of Egypt. In their stead, he voices the full scope of monotheism and lends it both cultic and political form. The measure of the man lies in the odds against him: the might of the Egyptian empire, the unheroic nature of a people impaired by slavery and his status as a stranger to Israelite society.

Finding Peace at Home and Abroad

Jan 10, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayehi

Sometimes the point of a passage hinges on what is missing rather than on what is said. I find this to be the case in the final exchange between Joseph and his brothers. The family has just returned to Egypt after burying Jacob in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron, and the brothers are overcome with fear of Joseph’s intentions. With their father gone, might Joseph now seek to punish them for what they had done to him years before? Was it only Jacob’s presence that had stayed his vengeful hand? The Torah uncharacteristically tells us what ran through their minds: “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!’ (Genesis 50:15)”

Making Room for God

Dec 21, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash

Jacob and Joseph, father and son, had been separated for 22 years. At first the exclamation of his sons that Joseph was not only alive but ruled over all of Egypt was met with stony silence. Jacob did not dare let their words shatter the emotional equilibrium he had forged out of his suffering. It was only upon seeing the vehicles of Egyptian design sent by Joseph that Jacob softened his resistance. His spirit sprang back to life and he insisted on leaving for Egypt immediately to behold once again his long lost son.

Uniting the Jewish People

Dec 20, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayeshev

This week I will leave for Israel to attend the World Zionist Congress along with 37 other delegates from MERCAZ, the official Zionist party of the Conservative Movement in the United States. Despite the overblown rhetoric that will be heard in Jerusalem, no one should imagine that this Congress is a matter of any consequence. Zionism is alive and well, but the World Zionist Organization died a long time ago. In Jewish life we simply can’t muster the political will to dismantle organizational structures designed for a specific purpose after they have been crowned with success.

The Importance of Educating Our Children

Dec 6, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei

When Abraham instructed his servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac back in the old country, and only there, he stipulated twice that Isaac himself was never to return. He was to stay in Canaan, but not to marry any of its native women. Yet a generation later, we find caution thrown to the winds. Jacob retraces his grandfather’s steps to Paddan-aram, from where he hailed.

Mourning a Sister

Nov 29, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Toledot

The Shiva is over. I have reentered the world emotionally drained and self-absorbed. My sister, my only sibling, was also my friend. We shared so much of our adult lives. My wife and I were married in her home. Her first husband, an obstetrician for whom the practice of medicine was his calling, delivered our three children. Their spacious and relaxed home in Vineland, New Jersey provided us a refuge full of love, companionship and good conversation. We traveled together, mourned together and always celebrated the Passover sedarim together.

Morality and the Mind

Oct 31, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Noah

But ten generations after Adam and Eve, we find God in despair over the unrelieved waywardness of humanity. Human depravity threatens to turn created order into primordial chaos. The Mishna (in Sanhedrin 10:3) declares the behavior of the generation of the flood to have been so reprehensible that it will be excluded for eternity from the world-to-come. Yet the Torah denies us any illustrative details, leaving a gap that begs for reader participation.

The Day Begins with Night

Oct 25, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bereishit

The Mishna, Judaism’s first legal compendium after the Bible, opens with a treatment of the proper times to recite the Shema in the evening and in the morning. The first line reads: “From when to when do we [liturgically] read the Shema in the evening.” The ensuing discussion in the Gemara (Mishna + Gemara = Talmud) asks why the Mishna doesn’t first take up the morning Shema. Since the day starts in the morning, wouldn’t this be the logical place to start? The answer of the Gemara is brief and far-reaching. The Mishna follows the order of creation. Six times the opening chapter of the Torah repeats the poetic refrain, “And there was evening and there was morning,” to signal the completion of a divine day’s work. The Torah seems to be going out of its way to establish the fact that the day does not begin with the crack of dawn, but rather with the setting of the sun (or halakhicly, with the appearance of three stars).

The Process of Repentance

Oct 11, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yom Kippur

A Palestinian preacher, Rabbi Alexandri, was wont to speak in the language of an evangelist: “Who desires life?” he would declaim, “Who desires life?” And quickly the crowds gathered, demanding, “Give us life!” At last, Rabbi Alexandri would begin by quoting two verses from Psalm 34: “Who is the person who is eager for life, who desires years of good fortune? Guard your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking guile (34:13-14).”

Pluralism in Israel

Oct 2, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

I have been asked often of late why I am spending so much time on the promotion of religious pluralism in Israel. Isn’t it a diversion from the continuity crisis in America, which is, after all, my main concern? The fact is that the two are linked. Israel is a large component of American Jewish identity. Were Israel to become irrelevant or off-putting for American Jews, our ability to withstand the forces of assimilation would be gravely impaired. As an unconditional Zionist, I would support Israel even if it became a benighted shtetl. But such a constricted and coercive state would hold little meaning for our grandchildren.

Torah and Livelihood

Sep 20, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Among the cascade of curses that pour forth in Parashat Ki Tavo, one in particular grabs my attention this year, not because of the vividness of its brutality (others surpass it), but because of its later application in a talmudic dispute. Our reading of a text is often a function of what we have on our mind. I refer to a fairly generic articulation of the fate of national subjugation: “Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve – in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything – the enemies whom the Lord will let loose against you… (Deuteronomy 28:47–48). The phrase “ve–avadeta et oyvekha – you shall have to serve your enemies” is the link to a discussion in the Talmud about the issue of just how much of our lives are we expected to devote to the study of Torah.

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