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A Call for Hope
Sep 10, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
In the face of a litany of personal, societal, and global woes that has seemed particularly long this year; in the face of our nation’s inability to shake the economy loose or defeat our enemies or work together despite our differences, the Jewish calendar insists there is something new in store—or that there can be, if we together do as the Torah commands.
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Confronting Our Own Shortcomings
Aug 9, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tishah Be'av
It may sound strange that I look forward every summer to observing Tish’ah Be’Av. The saddest day on the Hebrew calendar is also the one I have found most consistently meaningful since my teenage years.
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The Origins of a Nation
Apr 23, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Pesah
As we set our tables and prepare for our seders, we cannot help but hear the echoes of our journey from persecution to freedom amplified in the headlines. Our holiday of Hodesh Ha’aviv—the “Month of the Spring”—comes at a time when the ripple effects of what has been dubbed the Arab Spring are just beginning to be felt.
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A New Question for Passover
Apr 16, 2011 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah
The means to ultimate redemption—and a sure sign that redemption has arrived—is peace between the generations. We can’t hope for redemption of the world, the prophet says, if the hearts of fathers and sons (the literal translation of the prophetic verse) are not “returned upon” each other.
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Between Tum’ah and Tohorah
Apr 2, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Tazria
It seems more than kismet that Passover falls when it does, following on the heels of the parashiyot of Leviticus in which we discuss the most base of subjects. In fact, rabbis and commentators through the ages have found the laws of tum’ah and tohorah (ritual impurity and purity) covered in these weeks before Passover so unsettling that, presumably in reaction, they have enthusiastically embraced the following statement from the Talmud: “Questions are asked and lectures are given on the laws of Passover beginning thirty days before” (BT Pesachim 6a). Surely, this is an avoidance tactic on the part of rabbis, but maybe it is also for the sake of the community—to save them from many discussions that would make them lose their appetites for the kiddush that follows services.
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Strengthening Ourselves
Mar 5, 2011 By David Marcus | Commentary | Pekudei | Shabbat Shekalim
This Shabbat is one of beginnings and endings. It is a Shabbat of beginnings because it is the first of the four special Shabbatot preceding Pesah, and it is called Shabbat Shekalim. But this Shabbat is also a Shabbat of endings. The parashah for the week, Parashat Pekudei, describes the concluding stages of the construction of the Mishkan by the craftsman Bezalel and the entire band of Israelite workers.
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Intent of a Question
Jan 8, 2011 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Bo | Pesah
Everyone knows that four children are mentioned in the Passover Haggadah and that one of them is the evil child. Probably fewer of us are aware that the question attributed to this child is a biblical verse found in this week’s Torah portion, “What do you mean by this rite (avodah)?” (Exod. 12:26).
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The True Story of Hanukkah
Dec 4, 2010 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Hanukkah
What is Hanukkah really about? There are several answers to a question like this, since the meaning of a holiday or ritual develops and grows over time. I’d like to point out a fascinating tension between two understandings of Hanukkah that becomes clear from examining two popular songs many of us sing after lighting the candles.
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Going Up in Holiness
Nov 27, 2010 By David Levy | Commentary | Vayeshev | Hanukkah
Next Wednesday night, Hanukkah begins and Jews all over the world will gather around the menorah to light one candle for the first night of Hanukkah. We take it for granted that we light a candle on the first night, two on the second, and so on, but it could have been different.
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Eating in the Wilderness
Sep 24, 2010 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Sukkot
With Sukkot on my mind, the wilderness controversy prompted me to imagine what the Israelites’ experience of the wilderness might be like nowadays in contrast to biblical times. How much of the hardship of their forty-year trek from Egypt to Canaan might they have been spared if their four-wheel (instead of four-legged)-drive vehicles had been guided by GPS rather than meandering pillars of fire and cloud, or if the signage in the desert had amounted to more than a few indecipherable graffiti (even more obscure than Garden State Parkway markers)?
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Why We Rejoice
Sep 23, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Sukkot
We are blessed with so much—until we are not. Which is why we don’t count chickens before they hatch or rejoice before the crops are in: it ain’t over till it’s over.
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Seeing the World Around Us
Sep 18, 2010 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Yom Kippur
On Rosh Hashanah our view is panoramic; on Yom Kippur it is myopic. This difference between the two holidays is intentional; the holidays are designed to live in stark contrast. Remarkably, just eight days ago, our focus was totally different than it is now. On Rosh Hashanah, for example, we gaze globally; on Yom Kippur, we exist locally.
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Sea of Repentance
Sep 18, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Yom Kippur
I can think of no better metaphor than mikveh for God’s role during aseret y’mei teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance that lead up to and include Yom Kippur.
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A Pesah Message for My Students
Mar 27, 2010 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
This week’s Torah portion reports instructions given by God to Moses concerning Aaron and his priestly descendants. The rest of us, as it were, are invited to eavesdrop.
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Vulnerability and Joy
Oct 10, 2009 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Shemini Atzeret | Sukkot
How do we make sense of two of the central narratives of the holiday of Sukkot that seemingly point us in different emotional directions?
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Innovation in Jewish Tradition
Oct 3, 2009 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Sukkot
I have yet to cave and get a Kindle, but I will be honest and say that it will probably be within a few weeks. From my years of schooling, I have gained an appreciation for, and on some level, a preference for the printed word—that is, a tangible, heavy, dusty, written word. I like holding a book, turning the pages, feeling the weight of the paper—and the Kindle just seems to fall flat. Nonetheless, the idea of browsing The New Republic and Commentary Magazine on one device seems almost a little bit too exciting to pass up.
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Psychotherapy as a Lens for Conceptualizing Teshuvah
Sep 26, 2009 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Shabbat Shuvah | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
I have always thought it interesting that Maimonides places so much emphasis on words in the process called teshuvah, even for transgressions not against other human beings. After quoting the verse from the Torah that speaks about the importance of confession (vidui) as part of the process for repairing a wrong enacted in the world (Num. 5:5–6), Maimonides emphasizes that this must be done with words. Teshuvah cannot be limited to an internal process of reflection. Maimonides stresses that any internal commitments must ultimately get expressed with words and counsels that the more one engages in verbal confession and elaborates on this subject, the more praiseworthy one is (Laws of Teshuvah 1:1).
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The Psychology of Our Prayers
Sep 19, 2009 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Even when we are well-settled into friendships, marriages, or parenting, the quality of our connection with the people we care about most in the world has a lot to do with our happiness, our fulfillment in life, and our sense of belonging in the world.
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Sanctifying Our Days
Aug 22, 2009 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shofetim | Rosh Hashanah
What constitutes a life well-lived, a life of blessing, a life lived to its fullest? With this week marking Rosh Hodesh, the beginning of a new month, we pray for God to renew our lives in the coming month: “Grant us a long life, a peaceful life with goodness and blessing, sustenance and physical vitality, a life informed by purity and piety . . . a life of abundance and honor, a life embracing piety and love of Torah, a life in which our heart’s desires for goodness will be fulfilled” (Birkat HaHodesh). This Rosh Hodesh offers us a particularly auspicious moment to dwell upon this question of a life well-lived, for this week marks the beginning of Elul—a month in which we are encouraged to take a heshbon ha-nefesh, an accounting of our souls. At its essence, this idea demands that we look inward and become critical of ourselves and the year that has passed. This week’s parashah, Shof’tim, gives us one definition of a life of blessing that we can use in evaluating where we have come from and where we are going.
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Our Hope and Despair
Jul 18, 2009 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av
We are now in the period known as the Three Weeks: the weeks between the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz, which marks the day the outer walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Babylonians, and the ninth of Av, when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple. These weeks are the low point of the year. In a dramatic reversal of the ordinary mourning process, which begins in its starkest intensity and lifts over time as the mourners are comforted, these weeks of mourning increase in intensity as they move, inevitably, to the destruction of God’s house and the banishment of the people into exile. The prophetic readings drive home that we have brought this horrible tragedy on ourselves. This week’s haftarah, from chapter 2 of Jeremiah, is the second of three haftarot of affliction. Jeremiah chastises the people for having strayed from God and God’s Torah.
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