JTS Torah Commentary

Senior Sermons: Class of 2020

Sep 25, 2019

Speaking God, Speaking Humanity

Sep 20, 2019 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Ki Tavo

What makes the Jews God’s people? On Yom Kippur, when we sing Ki anu amekha ve’atah Elohenu (For we are Your people and You are our God), what are we talking about? Is this triumphalism, elitism, exclusivity? Or could it be an ethic of communal, legislated kindness?

Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Sep 9, 2019 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

In 1861, as a great conflagration spread across our nation, the Bostonian abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Samuel Joseph May published a slender tract entitled The Fugitive Slave Act and Its Victims, an impassioned polemic against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This federal law, born of the Missouri Compromise of the same year, required all federal, state and local authorities, including those in free states, to return fugitive slaves to their masters, while also criminalizing any attempt to aid and abet a slave seeking to escape bondage.

Prophets of Faith

Sep 6, 2019 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Shofetim

I often distinguish between faith and belief and consider myself to be a person of faith. Whereas belief implies a degree of certainty that I am uncomfortable with, faith embraces doubt. To my ear, the statement that I believe something to be true communicates that you know something is true. The statement that I have faith that something is true suggests that you desire or suspect something is true. Belief seems restrictive to me—confined by only what is known or can be known—and is at risk of dogmatism.

Blood, Water, and Desire

Aug 30, 2019 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Re'eh

These days most observant Jewish women in North America do not soak and salt their own meat. What was once a common and familiar marker of Jewish kitchens, and a deeply gendered rite of passage for young Jewish women, has been professionalized and sequestered away from the eyes of most of those who cook and eat kosher meat. In the United States, the act itself is often performed by mostly non-Jewish workers under the supervision of Orthodox rabbis—a largely male caste. The sounds, sights, and smells of this “kashering” process as performed today would seem strange, unfamiliar, and perhaps even repulsive to most Jewish North American women. 

A Land That’s Too Good?

Aug 23, 2019 By Nicole Wilson-Spiro | Commentary | Eikev

I received a call one evening this summer from the doctor at Ramah Palmer. My son had tripped, and she wanted permission to bring him off camp the next day to have his swollen wrist x-rayed. Of course! But by the next morning I had convinced myself that I should pick him up from camp and bring him to our local orthopedist. I even convinced my husband that this would be best for insurance, since our orthopedist is in our insurance network. Unfortunately for me, the camp’s local hospital also turned out to be in our network. Truthfully, I wanted him to come home because I wanted to see him with my own eyes to make sure he was OK. My son is eleven, and he was hurt badly enough that he needed x-rays.

A Leader’s Limits

Aug 16, 2019 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

The very title of this week’s parashah, Va’et-hannan (“and I pleaded”), presents the larger-than-life figure of Moses in a humbling place. Before sharing with the people fundamental elements of the faith that they have taken on and the civilization that they aspire to become, Moses confessed to them that his exclusion from the destined land of promise was against his will, and in spite of emotional pleas to God (Deut. 3:23–26). The man who chose to forgo the trappings of a life among the royal Egyptian elite to lead an at-times ungrateful band of liberated slaves through the desert would ultimately be barred from tasting the final fruit of his sacrifice.

Hope Amid Destruction

Aug 9, 2019 By Sara J. Bloomfield | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av

Tishah Be’av, which begins immediately after this Shabbat, is a moment on the Jewish calendar when we pause to reflect on the nature, impact, and significance of destruction. I’ve spent 33 years working at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, so naturally I’ve thought intensely about what the catastrophic destruction of European Jewry means for me, for Jews, and for humanity.

Boundaries on the Move

Aug 2, 2019 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

Every week, we read a parashah from the Torah during our Shabbat morning service, and then the beginning of the next parashah during our Shabbat afternoon service. The result of reading from two parashiyot on a single day can be surprising. This week, as we read first from Masei, the last parashah of Numbers, and then from Devarim, the first from Deuteronomy, we can hear an ancient debate about an issue that remains deeply contested: where to draw the line.

In the Face of Violence, a Covenant of Peace

Jul 26, 2019 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Pinehas

Karen Armstrong, the scholar of religion and popular author of such works as The History of God, relates that wherever she travels, she is often confronted by someone—a taxi driver, an Oxford academic, an American psychiatrist—who confidently expresses the view that “religion has caused more violence and wars than anything else.” This is quite a remarkable statement given that in the last century alone, tens of millions of people have been killed in two world wars, the communist purges in the Soviet Union and its satellites, and the Cambodian killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, none of which were caused by religious motivations.

The Sorcery in Our Midst

Jul 20, 2019 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Balak

In this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Balak, we read a riveting story of the diviner, Balaam, who was commissioned by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites (Num. 22:2–24:25). Balak’s goal was to weaken the Israelites, encamped at the borders of Moab, so that he could defeat them in battle. Balaam is richly and, at times, inconsistently described in our detailed narrative. Part of the story’s complexity is due to the historical fact that two narratives about Balaam were conflated in the finally redacted text of the Bible. 

What Now? Episode 4 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 4 of the podcast What Now?, “The Wholeness of a Broken Heart” with Mychal Springer, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m […]

What Now? Episode 7 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 8 of the podcast What Now?, “Sympathetic Teachers and Rebellious Rabbis” with David Kraemer, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara […]

What Now? Episode 5 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 5 of the podcast What Now?, “Getting Honest With Yourself” with Eliezer Diamond, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara Beth […]

What Now? Episode 9 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 9 of the podcast What Now?, “Restoring Balance” with Julia Andelman, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara Beth Berman, your […]

What Now? Episode 10 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 5 of the podcast What Now?, “This One Goes to Eleven” with David Fishman, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara […]

What Now? Episode 11 podcast transcript

Jul 18, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 5 of the podcast What Now?, “On a Scale of One to Ten” with Sarah Wolf, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. […]

What Now? Episode 8 podcast transcript

Jul 15, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 8 of the podcast What Now?, “From Loss to Action” with Stephanie Ruskay, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara Beth […]

What Now? Episode 6 podcast transcript

Jul 15, 2019

The following is a transcription of episode 8 of the podcast What Now?, “We Were Strangers” with Abigail Uhrman, provided for accessibilty for all website visitors.  [Music] Sara Beth Berman: Welcome to What Now?, a podcast from the Jewish Theological Seminary that asks how we respond when it all goes wrong. I’m Sara Beth Berman, […]

Handling Our Anger

Jul 12, 2019 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Hukkat

Among the many stories in Parashat Hukkat, perhaps the most discussed is when Moses, in response the Israelites’ grievances, is instructed by God to “order the rock to yield its water.” Moses, instead, strikes the rock twice with his rod. Water comes forth, but God rebukes Moses for disobeying his instructions: “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm my sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, there you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them” (Num. 20:2–13).