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Jewish Time
Jul 13, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
The tantalizingly fragmented book of Numbers closes with a new generation of Israelites, born and bred in the wilderness, poised to cross the Jordan from the west at Jericho.
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Wealth and Ego
Jun 22, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah
Our parasha this week bears and perpetuates the name of Korah, the arch rebel against Moses’s leadership.
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There Are No Shortcuts
Jun 8, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
The nation Moses brought out of Egypt shared neither his vision nor faith.
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Who Was Nethanel Ben Zuar?
Jun 1, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Naso
You will indulge me, I hope, if I stay with the minor biblical figure of Nethanel son of Zuar, leader of the tribe of Issachar, for another week.
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How We Acquire Our Names
May 18, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bemidbar
I am not the same person I was last year when we read the book of Numbers in the synagogue.
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Death and Life
May 4, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor
Death has been a frequent visitor this year at the Seminary, felling young and old alike, as if the assassination of Mr. Rabin on November 4 was a harbinger of things to come. Rarely have young people, so sheltered from death in our self–indulgent society, been more sorely tested. Some of the deceased, like Professors Shraga Abramson, Moshe Davis and Cantor Max Wohlberg, died in old age after long careers of lasting achievement, both in Israel and in America, including many years of teaching at the Seminary. Others were cut down in the prime of life: Professor Seth Brody, a graduate of our Rabbinical School and frequent visiting member of our faculty, by cancer, at the height of his powers, just a few years after attaining a full–time appointment at Haverford College, and Matt Eisenfeld, a second year rabbinical student at the Seminary, and his fiancee to be, Sara Duker, a graduate of Barnard College and active member of the Seminary community, by a suicide bomber on February 25 in Jerusalem, denying the world the fulfillment of their radiant promise.
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The Word is Flesh and Bread
Apr 20, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria
For Jews, the Hebrew Bible has always been a canon without closure, and the key to that historic paradox is the way we read it. Midrash posits more than one meaning to a word, verse or book. The literal meaning does not begin to exhaust the contents of the sacred text. Beneath the surface lie deeper meanings waiting to be tapped by resourceful readers. What distinguishes a divine from a human text, the Rabbis contended, is a multiplicity of meanings. In their sensitive hands, Scripture (the Tanakh) never lost its pliability: a finite number of books were made to yield an infinity of new readings.
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A Beacon for the Years that Lie Ahead
Mar 30, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav | Tishah Be'av
The Talmud tells that at the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in the year 586 B.C.E., the following poignant scene unfolded: “Many clusters of young priests ascended to the roof of the sanctuary with its keys in their hands and said: Lord of the Universe, since we lacked the merit to be trustworthy caretakers, let these keys be returned to Your possession.’ They threw them in the air and half-a-hand, so it appeared, stretched forth to take them in. The young priests then jumped directly into the flames.
To Be Heard Is to Be Helped
Mar 23, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayikra
Translations conceal as much as they convey.
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Torah in the Face of Tragedy
Mar 9, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tissa
The month of Adar has hardly been a herald of joy for our people this year, as it traditionally is.
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Memory: Judaism’s Lifeblood
Mar 2, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Purim
My father died 14 years ago. This week I will observe his Yahrzeit once again.
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Forging Faith: Persistent Human Effort Vs. Divine Miracles
Feb 3, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beshallah
The end of a story often illuminates its beginning.
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Asking Questions
Jan 27, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bo
Isidor I. Rabi, who was born in Austria in 1898, won the Nobel prize in physics in 1944.
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Judaism and the Afterlife
Jan 6, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayehi
The title of this week’s parasha is full of irony.
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Abraham the Noble Warrior
Nov 4, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
The Torah does not give us a complete biography of Abraham, only a series of striking vignettes.
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A Bold Exegetical Gambit
Nov 2, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
Why does Jacob abandon the security of his parents home in Beer-sheba?
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Conquering Passions
Oct 28, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Noah
My favorite Jewish ritual is the recitation of havdalah at the end of Shabbat. It is a love rooted in childhood.
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Isaiah Berlin and Kant
Oct 21, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Bereishit
I like Isaiah Berlin’s favorite quotation from Kant: “Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.”
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The Power of Prayer
Oct 3, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yom Kippur
The High Holy Days don’t play to our strength. The extended services put a premium on prayer, an activity at which we are no longer very adept. Yom Kippur asks of us to spend an entire day in the synagogue immersed in prayer. But we find it easier to believe in God than to pray to God. It is this common state of discomfort that prompts me to share with you a few thoughts on the art of Jewish praying.
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Praying for Rain
Sep 25, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
Rainfall has been sparse this summer in much of the northeast, and the reservoirs of New York City are some 24% lower than normal for this time of year.
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