JTS Torah Archive

What We Are Asked to Remember

Mar 11, 2006 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Shabbat Zakhor | Tetzavveh

By Rabbi Yehoshua Aizenberg

Two Sabbaths ago, we celebrated Shabbat Shekalim, the first of four special Sabbaths preceding Pesah. This coming Shabbat, Shabbat Zachor, always comes right before the Purim celebration.

The Inspirational History of Rosh Hashanah

Oct 5, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

If sanctity be measured by synagogue attendance, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur win hands down.

The Responsibility of Holding Office

Sep 10, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shofetim

Rabbi Hananiah, the Deputy High Priest, taught: “Pray for the welfare of the government, for if people did not fear it, they would swallow each other alive” (Pirkei Avot 3:2, trans. Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals, 264).

Lessons From the Book of Ruth

Jun 12, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shavuot

Sharing our possessions is not a disposition that comes naturally.

The Truth about the Exodus

Apr 30, 2005 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Pesah

This past December, I went with my wife and two adult children on a family vacation to Egypt.

Elijah the Prophet

Apr 23, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol

The Shabbat just prior to Passover is known as the Great Sabbath, Shabbat ha–Gadol. It is not one of the four special Sabbaths that span the month of Adar to herald the coming of Passover (Shekalim, Zakhor, Parah and ha–Hodesh).

The Theology of the Jewish Calendar

Apr 9, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Pesah

With Shabbat ha-Hodesh, we are just two weeks away from the first seder. Passover does not usually fall this late in April. A leap year accounts for its delay. In the Jewish calendar, unlike the secular one, a leap year consists of adding an extra month, and there are seven such leap years within every cycle of nineteen years. The month that is doubled is Adar, the last month of the year, the one in which we celebrate Purim. Hence, in a leap year, Purim comes in the second Adar (adar sheni) and Passover, thirty one-days later.

The Power of the Mind Over Reality

Mar 25, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav

Judaism is a choir of many voices.

The Ease of Redemption

Oct 25, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yom Kippur

The redemption of the world is easier than you think. It starts with you and me.

What Is a Sukkah, Really?

Sep 30, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot

During the festival of Sukkot in 1974, while on sabbatical in Israel, the Schorsch family took a trip to Sharm El Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.

A World Without Teshuvah

Sep 18, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

The Torah is largely a series of legal texts set in a narrative context. It is not replete with outbursts of poetry. Our poetic sensibility seeks satisfaction elsewhere in the Tanakh – in the passion of the prophets, or the poignancy of the psalmist, or the protest of Job, or in the sensuousness of the Song of Songs. The Torah touches only some of our senses. And yet, it closes in a great poetic flourish. As Moses nears his end, he switches from didactic prose to incandescent poetry.

A Psalm for Repentance

Aug 28, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

The Hebrew month of Elul offers us an opportunity to repent. It is an auspicious time granted us each year, during which we can shake off the shackles of our spiritual apathy and seek an engaging and loving path back to ourselves, our fellow human beings, and most importantly, God. One of the traditions prescribed to arouse the feeling of teshuvah, repentance, is the recitation of Psalms.

Seeing the Good

Jul 31, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Tishah Be'av

On Tishah b’Av, commemorated this past Monday and Tuesday evenings, the Jewish community focuses on the many tragedies which have befallen the Jewish people throughout the ages. This day is of central importance to the Jewish calendar. The Mishnah of tractate Taanit 26a-b lists four events that occurred on the Ninth of Av: the decree that the generation of Israelites that left Egypt could not enter the Land of Israel; the destruction of the First and Second Temples (586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively); the capture and fall of Betar under the Romans (135 CE); and the plowing over of Jerusalem (136 CE).

The Poetry and Theology of Tishah Be’av

Jul 24, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av

On the Shabbat prior to the fast of Tishah b’Av, the synagogue reverberates to the opening chapters of Deuteronomy. The name of the book and of the parashah, Devarim – Words – emphasizes the key Jewish response to calamity. Historically, Jews rebuild their shattered worlds with words of high emotion and daring imagination. Like God at the dawn of creation, we bring order out of chaos through words. The instrument has nothing to do with the magic of incantations. It mirrors the fundamental human condition. The worlds we inhabit are a construct of our minds.

Overcoming the Past

Jun 12, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shelah Lekha | Rosh Hashanah

This week’s parashah strikes a note that reverberates throughout the liturgy of our High Holy Day services: “I pardon (salahti), as you have asked (14:20).” Prayers for forgiveness (selihot-same word) punctuate the season of introspection from the week before Rosh Hashanah to the end of Yom Kippur. Not surprisingly, this verse from our parashah appears often in these prayers. The concept of atonement enables us to bridge the chasm between divine expectation and human reality. It prevents the perfect from becoming the enemy of the good. For humans, holiness is always a temporary state of being. Without forgiveness, we would find ourselves forever alienated from God.

Passover in the Light of Yom Kippur

May 1, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim | Pesah | Yom Kippur

If the first half of this week’s double parasha reminds you of Yom Kippur, despite our proximity to Passover, you are not in error. The two Torah readings for that solemn day are both drawn from Aharei Mot. Chapter 16, which we read at Shaharit on Yom Kippur morning, depicts the annual ceremony on the tenth day of the seventh month for cleansing the tabernacle of its impurities and the people of their sins. The English word “scapegoat” preserves a verbal relic of the day’s most memorable feature – the goat destined to carry off symbolically the collective guilt of the nation into the wilderness. Chapter 18, reserved for Minhah in the afternoon, defines the sexual practices which were to govern the domestic life of Israelite society.

Miracles of All Kinds

Apr 24, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tazria | Yom Hazikaron-Yom Ha'atzma'ut

Conspicuous miracles move us more swiftly and deeply than inconspicuous miracles. The latter elude our detection because they are an everyday occurrence. The commonplace numbs our sense of wonder, even as the daily experience of grandeur strips us of awe and radical amazement. It is surely one of the functions of religion to keep our wellsprings of wonder from running dry.

Bringing the Messianic Redeption

Apr 3, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah

The most distinctive feature of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath just before Passover, is that it called for a sermon. For in the pre-emancipation synagogue, the rabbi customarily spoke but twice a year: on the Shabbat prior to Passover and on the Shabbat between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah. These sermons tended to be halakhic in character, reminding congregants of the elaborate and proper observance of the holy day to come.

Lighting a Candle Before God

Dec 27, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Hanukkah

As the menorah shines with all eight candles on this Shabbat Hanukkah, I am inspired to reflect on the powerful spiritual metaphor of light in the Jewish tradition. Light is one of the enduring symbols for God in our sacred texts

The Symbolism of Light

Dec 27, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Hanukkah

As the menorah shines with all eight candles on this Shabbat Hanukkah, I am inspired to reflect on the powerful spiritual metaphor of light in the Jewish tradition.