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Memory’s Comfort

Jul 28, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av

Next week I will commemorate Tishah B’Av at Camp Ramah. Many a summer finds me vacationing in Vermont when the fast day comes. My isolation makes its observance doubly difficult. Judaism requires community. Our religious reserves quickly run dry when we go it alone. The presence of a minyan united by ritual not only generates an atmosphere of sanctity, it also inspires our own participation.

Purifying Our Technology

Jul 21, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

Mattot-Mas’ei, which we read this week, portrays the final months of the Israelites’ wandering in the desert, and the skirmishes which would presage their conquest of the land of Canaan. In the previous chapters, the Israelites had had trouble with the Midianites- a nation which posed not a military, but a cultural threat. They attacked Israel not on the battlefield, but with temptation to idolatry and sexual impropriety. In this week’s reading, God commands the Israelites to go to war against them, and the Israelite troops return from battle bearing the spoils of war – human captives, animals, precious metals and household items. Moses, the aged leader, and Eleazar, the new high priest, greet the returning troops with instructions for how to dispose of the spoils.

Linguistic Fossils

Jul 14, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas

Fossils come in different forms. Those buried in the earth have vastly expanded our conception of time and the evolution of life. Those imbedded in the language we speak are closer to our daily experience and barely noticed. Despite the change in world view, these linguistic fossils persist because they are concrete, vivid and emotionally satisfying. Thus a current TV sitcom about a happily married minister with seven children can sport the name Seventh Heaven, though no one holds any longer the medieval notion that the earth sits at the center of a cosmos surrounded by seven firmaments. Two other examples of idioms that have outlasted their origins: “To placate the gods” we would be ready to go to “the ends of the earth.”

“Judge Not…”

Jul 7, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Balak

How is our behavior judged by others? What determines whether our actions are seen as positive and appropriate, or as negative and improper?

The Centrality of Torah Study

Jun 30, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hukkat

For the Rabbis, the words of Torah are infinitely plastic because they are infinitely meaningful. If God be infinite, so is God’s language. Via creative interpretation, midrash, the Rabbis dismantle and reassemble individual words, phrases and verses to pour new meanings into old vessels, turning a static text into one that is ever in formation.

Jewish Authority

Jun 23, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah

During the past few months, there has been a changing of the guard at the helm of key national organizations of the American Jewish community. The personalities interest me less than the process. From a historical perspective what is most striking is the total non–involvement of the state. No Jewish leader in the United States ever needs to secure confirmation of his or her selection from the state. Authority to exercise leadership in the Jewish community derives solely from within. The state makes no pretense of influence or power over the process.

How God Leads

Jun 9, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

Abraham Joshua Heschel writes eloquently that the supreme aspiration of religion is to inspire each one of us, in the words of the psalmist, ‘to lift up your eyes and see.’ Heschel explains: “The grand premise of religion is that man is able to surpass himself; that man who is a part of this world may enter into a relationship with God who is greater than this world; that man may lift up his mind and be attached to the absolute; that man who is conditioned by a multiplicity of factors is capable of living with demands that are unconditioned.” The challenge, then, is to identify one’s path toward a meaningful and sanctified life, guided by one’s relationship with God.

Leadership Through “Contraction”

May 26, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bemidbar

The fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, opens eleven months after the revelation at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:1) and one month after the completion of the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:17). It resumes the story line interrupted by Leviticus, which is almost entirely devoid of narrative content. What follows is a series of gripping events that punctuate and account for an unexpected forty–year trek through the wilderness, culminating on the steppes of Moab east of the Jordan River just prior to Moses’ death. Hence, the Hebrew name of the book Bemidbar–In the Wilderness, comes closer to capturing the sweep of the narrative.

Kindling the Light of Torah

May 12, 2001 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor

This past week the JTS community gathered together to celebrate the completion of the Kripke Tower. This magnificent tower blesses JTS with more classroom space, a state–of–the–art music studio and language lab, and a video conferencing center which will serve the needs of students, faculty and staff. Even the entryway conveys a message of mutuality, as light from outside filters through the glass breezeway, while light from the interior courtyard reflects back out to the street. One final detail of architectural insight will crown the Kripke Tower when it is officially dedicated in just under two weeks. As JTS enhances its capacity to spread its message of Torah and mitzvot throughout the Jewish world, an everlasting light (ner tamid) will be lit at the top of the tower guarding over JTS.

Mitzvah vs. Mitzvah

May 5, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim

Sometimes in the Biblical text, the first half and second half of a verse seem to be talking past each other. The first half addresses one commandment or concept, and the second half seems to go off on a tangent. This strange type of juxtaposition appears a number of times in K’doshim , the second half of our double portion for the week.

Purifying Waters?

Apr 28, 2001 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

“These are the verses that try men’s souls.” Or better, these are the verses that pain the souls of numbers of serious Jewish women. I refer to Leviticus 12:2—5 in Parshat Tazri·a, and Leviticus 15:19—24 in Parshat Metzora. The first verses describe the laws regarding the days of a woman’s “uncleanness” (tum’ah) after giving birth to a child, which last twice as long if she gives birth to a female child. The second verses refer to the “impurity” of a menstruating woman (niddah). Anything she lies on or sits on becomes “unclean,” and any man who has sexual relations with her also becomes “unclean.” While almost all of the Torah’s impurity laws became obsolete after the destruction of the Temple, these laws, regarding postpartum and menstruating women, remain on the books.

What Do You Look at When You Pray?

Apr 21, 2001

A good question has a long afterlife. It does not let go of us till it gets the kind of answer it deserves. Over lunch a few weeks ago, a devoted donor of the Seminary asked me what I look at when I pray? The directness of the question bespoke real concern; its simplicity, deep profundity. I was taken aback for I too had been grappling with the question which cuts to the core of Judaism.

Yikzkor: The Order of Giving

Synagogue attendance always swells at Yizkor. No matter how attenuated our sense of being Jewish, we are drawn back for a moment to offer a prayer (“may God remember”) in memory of those we have loved and lost. The observance ofYahrzeit and Yizkor remains hallowed. The proximity of death still fills us with reverence if not foreboding.

Elijah at the Seder Table

Apr 7, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav

The Shabbat just prior to Passover is known as the Great Sabbath, Shabbat ha-Gadol.

On Rebuilding the Temple

Apr 3, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Terumah

With this week’s parasha we take up the manner in which ancient Israel was to worship God. The cult bespeaks the effort to institutionalize the peak experience of Sinai. How was an echo of the awesome nearness of God which marked Sinai to be perpetuated far from it in the depth of the ordinary? What was the nature of the instrument that would carry Sinai into the world? The model society envisioned by the Torah would not long endure without a ritual link to the source of its inspiration. Nothing confirms just how vital the cult was than the amount of attention paid to it by Scripture. For the rest of the book of Exodus and through the books of Leviticus and Numbers which are to follow, we shall be largely concerned with matters relating to the cult.

The Psychology of Sacrifice

Mar 31, 2001 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Vayikra

The sacrificial order laid out in the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Leviticus may seem alien to modern readers, but in its textual organization and minutiae of ritual, it reflects a deep psychological understanding of the nature of error and atonement in public and private life.

How Close Is God?

Feb 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa

From his first encounter with God at the burning bush, Moses displayed a penchant for deep knowledge. He needed to comprehend God before he was ready to face Israel and Pharaoh. He demanded to know God’s name, the key to God’s being. This week again, after the debacle of the Golden Calf, Moses returns for more illumination. To be chosen requires understanding the chooser.

A New Conception of God

Feb 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro

My father had a mind that reveled in philosophy. Maimonides, Spinoza and Kant were his lifelong companions. As a kid absorbed by sports, I knew their names almost as well as those of Sid Luckman and Joe DiMaggio, though their stats were harder to come by. I often saw my father pore over an old edition of Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s 13^th century Hebrew translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, written in Arabic. And in 1960 he brought a copy of Solomon Munk’s mid-19th-century French translation based on the Arabic original which Munk had discovered.

The Folly of Faith in Military Strength

Feb 10, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beshallah

Though separated by centuries, this week’s parasha and haftara overlap thematically. In each case, ancient Israel, aided by the forces of nature, prevails over a mighty enemy equipped with the most fearsome weapon of the day, the chariot. Pharaoh pursues the horde of Israelites departing Egypt with every chariot at his command, including his elite corps of 600. Drawn by two horses, each one of these swift vehicles was manned by a driver, warrior and officer. Clearly, Pharaoh intended to cow his just freed slaves into returning to Egypt without a struggle (Exodus 14:6-7).

Angel Analysis

Feb 3, 2001 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

The Passover seder song, Had Gadya, is sung to a merry little tune that belies the violent content. Why this song is sung at Passover is the subject of varying interpretations, but one connection seems clear: malakh ha-mavet, the angel of death. After all wasn’t it the angel of death that slew the first-born of Egypt? Actually, it was not.

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