Amalek and the Torah of Purim

Mar 22, 2024 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Purim

The Purim most of us celebrate is one that marks a moment of redemption – when a descendent of Amalek tried and failed to destroy the Jews. It is the holiday that best encapsulates the sentiment “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”. And yet, Jewish thinkers have also understood Purim as a day that touches upon the cornerstone of Judaism itself: the covenant between God and Israel via the acceptance of the Torah. How is this connection formed? What is the relationship between Torah and Purim? And, in a calendar already chock full of holidays celebrating the Torah, what place is left for Purim?

Between the Lines: Between Two Worlds

Mar 20, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war.

Mordecai the Jew and Esther the Greek: The Changing Politics of the Book of Esther in Antiquity and Our Times

Mar 18, 2024 By Aaron Koller | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Purim

The Book of Esther is a diaspora book. None of the action takes place in the Land of Israel, and the Temple is never mentioned. One of the most famous—and significant—features of the Hebrew Book of Esther is the absence of any mention of God. But these features that make Diaspora Jews feel comfortable were profoundly disturbing to some of the book’s earliest readers—so disturbing that they actually changed it.

Playing Hide and Seek with God

Mar 15, 2024 By Cecelia Beyer | Commentary | Pekudei

Our quest for the Divine is not a new one; we’ve been playing “hide and seek” with God since we left Egypt. In Parashat Pekudei, our ancestors also strove to come close to the Divine Presence, through assembling and dedicating the Tabernacle as a place for encountering the Divine: “When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of Adonai filled the Tabernacle” (Exod. 40:33–34). The dedication of the Tabernacle, God’s “dwelling place” on earth, was completed as God’s Presence filled and rested upon it

Between the Lines: Perfect Enemy

Mar 13, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In a covert laboratory under the streets of Tel Aviv, Akiva Cohen, an Israeli scientist, clones Hitler from old samples of his DNA. Akiva wants to change the world for the good; but he is betrayed by those who want to use this new Hitler for unimaginable terror. Akiva is plunged into a desperate struggle to stay alive and salvage his dream, leading to a trail of murders across the country, collaboration with Hamas terrorists, and the uncovering of a devastating conspiracy at the highest levels of Israeli society. Perfect Enemy is an exciting, suspenseful thriller that poses uncomfortable questions about trauma and revenge, the desire for peace, religious extremism, and the schisms of the Middle East.

The People Step Up

Mar 8, 2024 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Shabbat Shekalim | Vayak-hel

By this point in the Book of Exodus, the story outlines are probably familiar: the people—having been redeemed from Egypt and covenanted with God on Mt. Sinai, and having already sinned a terrible sin by building the Golden Calf—respond to God’s detailed instructions to build a Tabernacle by donating so generously that the collection of the material with which to construct the sanctuary has to be stopped midway, even as the people are still in the process of donating.

A Queen in the Tomb of the Kings: An Ancient Monument and its Modern Legacy

Mar 4, 2024 By Sarit Kattan Gribetz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, Queen Helena of Adiabene traveled from her kingdom in northern Mesopotamia to Jerusalem to worship the Jewish God in the temple. She ended up staying in the city, building a palace in the south and a monumental family tomb to the north. This queen was not forgotten: she appears in early Christian writings and rabbinic literature, she stars in medieval Jewish-Christian polemics, and there is a street named after her in contemporary Jerusalem.

The Desperate (and Comprehensible) Project of the Golden Calf

Mar 1, 2024 By Ilana Sandberg | Commentary | Ki Tissa

After the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, the Torah focuses on the project of how they could ensure God’s immanence, or retained presence, within their world. God instructs the Israelites to build the Mishkan, or Tabernacle, and establishes the sacrificial system to insure God’s continued presence. The episode of the Golden Calf seems like a grave error in this process that demands interpretation. Why would the people violate the second commandment they had just received and turn to idolatry?

Senior Sermons: Class of 2024

Feb 29, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon

Each year, student in their last year of Rabbinical School give a Senior Sermon for fellow students, faculty, and special guests and offer a sample of their unique Torah. All of the Class of 2024 will have their sermons listed here.

Ilana Sandberg – Senior Sermon (’24)

Feb 29, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Ki Tissa

Ilana Sandberg shares her senior sermon for Parshat Ki Tissa

Between the Lines: Postwar Stories

Feb 27, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Dr. Rachel Gordan joins us to discuss her book Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American. The period immediately following World War II was an era of dramatic transformation for Jews in America. At the start of the 1940s, President Roosevelt had to all but promise that if Americans entered the war, it would not be to save the Jews. But by the end of the decade, antisemitism was in decline and Jews were moving toward general acceptance in American society. Drawing on several archives, magazine articles, and nearly forgotten bestsellers, Postwar Stories examines how Jewish middlebrow literature helped to shape post-Holocaust American Jewish identity.

Jewish History and Education through the Lens of JTS’s Rare Manuscripts

Feb 26, 2024 By Yitz Landes | Public Event video | Video Lecture

With Dr. Yitz Landes, Assistant Professor of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures, JTS

The Jewelry of a Master Teacher

Feb 23, 2024 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Tetzavveh | Purim

Without using alchemy, the 16th-century Italian commentator Seforno (1470–1550) turned gems into gold. Writing a few short words about the gemstones that adorned the clothing of the High Priest, described in Parashat Tetzavveh, Seforno shares a truly fine insight about achieving greatness as an educator.

Terumah—The Gift That Elevates

Feb 16, 2024 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Terumah

Sometimes we all feel like we’re giving more than we get, that we do more than our share, or that our individual needs are being sacrificed for the sake of someone else’s happiness. It is an emotional struggle that we encounter in our families and friendships. Why should I give when the other person doesn’t reciprocate in the way that I would want? If I give, will I also get what I deserve?

Between the Lines: Absurdity and Meaning in Contemporary Philosophy and Jewish Thought

Feb 13, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS In his recent book, Absurdity and Meaning in Contemporary Philosophy and Jewish Thought, Dr. Alan L. Mittleman, Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind Emeritus Professor of Jewish Philosophy at JTS, addresses the question of the meaning of life in a philosophical spirit, which […]

How Can Humans Uphold Divine Justice?

Feb 9, 2024 By Caleb Brommer | Commentary | Mishpatim

In Parashat Mishpatim, the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by a more thoroughgoing account of the Israelite legal code. God, through Their intermediary Moshe, reveals some of the particularly sticky, tricky, and challenging cases of civil law. Mishpatim begins to answer the questions “What happens when human beings are slammed together in community? What happens when they disagree, make mistakes, and cause incidental or intentional harm? What happens when they kill each other?”

Talia Kaplan – Senior Sermon (’24)

Feb 7, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Mishpatim

Mishpatim All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons

Between the Lines: Polish Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital

Feb 5, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Polish Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital: Centering the Periphery is a path-breaking exploration of the diversity and vitality of urban Jewish identity and culture in Polish lands from the second half of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the Second World War (1899–1939). In this multidisciplinary essay collection, a cohort of international scholars provides an integrated history of the arts and humanities in Poland by illuminating the complex roles Jews in urban centers other than Warsaw played in the creation of Polish and Polish Jewish culture.

The Limitations God Shares with Us

Feb 2, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Yitro

But how do you reconcile the idea of God’s transcendent power with such things as a failure to anticipate human flaws, or a weakness for the smell of roasting meat, or jealousy, or suffering the travails of exile? Texts such as these raise eyebrows because they seem to lower God in our estimation.

Amalya Volz – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)

Feb 1, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Yitro

Yitro All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons

Pages:
Less
1
2
3
4
5
More

SUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS

Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.

JTS Torah Archive

SUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS

Share This Page