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Making Space for Life
Jul 26, 2024 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Pinehas
It’s not for nothing, this reputation God has for consuming anger. The Torah itself makes the case. Our parashah opens with yet another instance of God hovering at the brink. God is prepared to wipe us out in a rage over our incessant violations of the inviolable. We read in Numbers 25:10-15 that God grants Pinehas a “covenant of peace” for having leapt into action (at the end of last week’s parashah), publicly slaying two people who grossly violated sacred boundaries before the entire people. “Pinehas,” God explains, “has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his passion for Me, so that I did not put an end to the Israelites through My zeal.” (25:11)
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Innovations in Ritual and Halakhah (Law) Around Jewish Divorce
Jul 22, 2024
What are the essential components of an egalitarian marriage ceremony and divorce? How can we ensure that the Conservative/Masorti movement’s ways of Jewish marriage and divorce reflect our spiritual values and ethical ideals? Rabbi Pamela Barmash, PhD and Rabbi Karen Weiss Medwed, PhD discussed the progress that has been achieved in this area and the challenges that remain.
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The Sound of No Hands Clapping
Jul 19, 2024 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Balak
The Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud) will draw the connection between our parashah and clapping. It states that clapping, particularly when done in anger, is discouraged on Shabbat, and bases the prohibition on Numbers 24:10, where Balak, enraged by Balaam’s blessings instead of curses, claps his hands together in frustration. Balak’s clapping symbolizes a loss of control and submission to anger—actions that go against the peaceful spirit of Shabbat.
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Zionism and Antisemitism on Campus and Beyond
Jul 15, 2024
With Dr. Michael Kay (Day School Leadership Training Institute ’08), Head of School, The Leffell School and Rabbi Jason Rubenstein (Rabbinical School ’11 and Kekst Graduate School ‘10), Executive Director, Harvard Hillel
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Heroes and Humans
Jul 12, 2024 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Hukkat
But Moses also has shortcomings. His initial reluctance when God first approaches him to become Israel’s liberator could indicate cowardice, or worse, a lack of faith (Exod. 4:11–12). Moses also has a temper. He gets angry at the people (Exod. 32:19) and at God (Num. 11:10–15).
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X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos who Helped Defeat the Nazis
Jul 8, 2024
In June 1942, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form a new commando unit made of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. This top-secret unit, trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis.
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Not for the Sake of Heaven
Jul 5, 2024 By Menachem Creditor | Commentary | Korah
Parashat Korah, a poignant ancient exploration of conflict and leadership, remains frighteningly current. Korah challenges the authority of his cousins, Moses and Aaron, accusing them of elevating themselves above the community they serve. The biblical narrative communicates the palpable tension of contrasting intentions behind this dispute and the qualities that distinguish servant leaders from those whose primary motivations are attention and power.
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Judaism Is About Love
Jul 1, 2024
In his new book Judaism is About Love, Rabbi Shai Held offers the radical and moving argument that love belongs as much to Judaism as it does to Christianity. He sets out to contradict centuries of widespread misrepresentation that Christianity is the religion of love and Judaism the religion of law. Rabbi Held shows that love is foundational and constitutive of true Jewish faith, animating the singular Jewish perspective on injustice and protest, grace, family life, responsibilities to our neighbors and even our enemies, and chosenness.
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The Large Significance of the Littlest Letter
Jun 28, 2024 By Malka Strasberg Edinger | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
Could one tiny letter really be so important? At the beginning of this week’s parashah, as Moshe sends twelve scouts to tour the Land of Canaan, we are told that Moshe changed Joshua’s name from Hoshea to Yehoshua.
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Religious Misconceptions: American Jews and the Politics of Abortion
Jun 24, 2024
We begin by tracing the history of how American Jews contributed to reproductive politics by developing first amendment-based arguments for abortion rights. We also discuss the ways in which reproductive politics transformed American Judaism. In particular, we look at the many rituals that Jewish feminist leaders developed to support people undergoing abortion care and galvanize activists working for reproductive rights.
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The Journey
Jun 21, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
In other words, the path forward is never clear, and God isn’t a divine GPS. Revelation and faith shape our vision of where we want to go; they offer a compass pointing to true north, orienting us in the general direction of that vision. But to get there, we need maps, road signs, traffic signals, and human guides with a variety of expertise—religious and secular.
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Jews in the American Political and Public Square
Jun 17, 2024
The extent of Jewish participation in the American political process far outweighs the relative number of Jews in the population. Yet the contemporary activism of Jews is consistent with a tradition of civic involvement from the earliest days of Jewish settlement in America. This webinar explored Jewish participation in the American political system. We briefly address the foundations of religious freedom in America through the nineteenth century, and then focus on the watershed politics of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, from labor strikes to landmark legal cases. In studying these issues, we plumb the depths of what it means to be a minority in a democratic society and what it means to be a Jew in the modern world.
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What Blessing Do You Need Now?
Jun 14, 2024 By Andrea Merow | Commentary | Naso
In Parashat Naso we learn the blessing used by so many, called birkat kohanim, the blessing of the priests. Amid our longest parashah, nestled between laws of the Nazirites and final preparations for how to use the Tabernacle, our holy space, God teaches that people can use their words and actions to bless one another, all while noting that our blessings come from The Holy One.
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Becoming Like the Wilderness
Jun 7, 2024 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Bemidbar | Shavuot
With the start of Sefer Bemidbar, the narrative of the Torah turns to the long journey of Benei Yisrael through the wilderness—punishment for the sin of the Golden Calf and preparation for entry into the Land of Israel. Passage into the sacred terrain first requires an arduous ordeal of wandering—a physical process of movement and quest. Penitence, pilgrimage, and transformation are anchored in the space of wilderness.
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What is the Torah, Actually? Preparing for Shavuot
Jun 3, 2024 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shavuot
We’ve heard its stories; we’ve heard it chanted in synagogue; we’ve seen it hoisted in the air displaying handwritten ink on parchment; we’ve taken classes on it. But what, actually, is the Torah? A law code? A history book? An ancient novel? A saga? None of these categorizations quite fits. In this session, we consider what defines the distinctive genre of the Torah, where this genre comes from, how it reappears in Jewish culture over the ages—and what addressing these questions can teach us about the Jewish religion.
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The Terrifying Third Aliyah of Behukkotai
May 31, 2024 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Behukkotai | Shavuot
Why do we continue to read such horrible curses, and another passage much like it in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deut. 28:1–68), each year? The simplest answer is that we read the entirety of the Torah each year, omitting nothing. However, the Mishnah (Megillah 3:6) already notes something special about the curses of the Leviticus passage: “The section of curses must not be broken up but must all be read by one person.”
Read MoreJTS Alumni in the World: Scholarship and Impact
May 30, 2024 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Join esteemed JTS alumni to hear about the important contributions they are making through their work as scholars and thought leaders in their fields. Through their engagement with Jewish text, history, and thought, they are enhancing the spiritual and personal lives of individuals, building more inclusive communities, and preparing the leaders of tomorrow, ensuring a stronger Jewish future.
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What Can a Bird and a Seed Teach Us About Shemitah?
May 24, 2024 By Yael Hammerman | Commentary | Behar
In Parashat Behar, God tells the Israelites that when they enter the land that God will give them, “the Land shall observe a Sabbath of the Adonai”—veshavta ha’aretz Shabbat l’Adonai (Lev. 25:2). This becomes known as the shemitah year. For six years, you can work to your heart’s content—you can sow, prune, and gather, but in the seventh year, the land shall have a full, complete rest: shabbat shabbaton yihiyeh la’aretz (Lev. 25:4)!
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Gender, the Bible, and the Art of Translation
May 20, 2024
How should English translators of the Hebrew Bible approach questions relating to gender? When should gender-inclusive language (such as “God” or “person”) be used for references to God and human beings, and when is gendered terminology (such as “King” and “man”) called for historically and linguistically? What does it mean to faithfully render biblical Hebrew into contemporary English, and how can translators share their methodologies and choices with readers and communities? We explore these questions, focusing on the newest Bible translation released by The Jewish Publication Society, THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition.
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Are We Just Speaking, or Truly Communicating?
May 17, 2024 By Loraine Enlow | Commentary | Emor
Perhaps the breaking of the formula for our parashah’s irregular emor is about more than just words. Using its characteristic wordplay, the Midrash connects the parashah’s emor here to omer in Psalm 19:3 (spelled the same way, but as a poetic noun): “day to day utters speech (omer), and night to night reveals knowledge.” It explains that the day and the night are negotiating the giving and borrowing of time from each other to create the cycles of the year between the equinoxes. Reading the next verse in the psalm, we see “there is no speech (omer) . . .” Or as the Midrash puts it, “they pay each other back harmoniously, without a contract.”
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