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Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageOvercoming 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.
Read MoreA Universal New Year
Sep 27, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Living in a universe at least thirteen billion years old, we view with mild disclaim an ancient rabbinic dispute over the exact month in which God created it. Not long after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, two of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai’s renowned disciples expressed opposing views. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus insisted that God had created the world in the month of Tishrei, while Rabbi Yekoshua ben Hananyah contended that the event occurred in Nisan. Both rejected the Geek view that the cosmos might be eternal and uncreated. For the Torah and rabbinic Judaism, the ultimate reassurance of God’s existence is the miracle of creation, the mother of all miracles (BT Rosh Hashanah 106-11a).
Read MoreRemembrance, Childbirth, and Renewal
Sep 27, 2003 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Remembrance. Childbirth. Renewed hopes and dreams.
Read MoreTorah and Teshuvah
Sep 20, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
The beautiful and famous words of this week’s parashah have always touched my heart. This year, I read the following passage with new lenses, as I immerse myself in the month of Elul and the spiritual preparations for teshuvah. The Torah teaches:
Read More“Surely, this Instruction (Ha-Mitzvah Ha-Zot) which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who among us can cross the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it” (Deut. 30:11-14).
Judging Ourselves
Aug 30, 2003 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Shofetim | Rosh Hashanah
As we enter the month of Elul, the period of spiritual preparation for the High Holidays, it is fitting that we read Parashat Shofetim. The word Shofetim means “judges.” This Torah portion is dedicated to the establishment of a judicial system in the Holy Land. In our communities today, we are counting down to the “Day of Judgment,” Yom HaDin.
Read MoreOn Radical Amazement
Sep 6, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Great theology is the reflective end result of religious experience. If we can identify the underlying experience, it will be easier for us to fathom the abstraction. This has been for me, at least, the key to penetrating a well-known Talmudic statement that has captivated me all summer. Familiarity often obscures meaning. I share the comment of R. Yohanan with you in the hope that it will enrich your High Holy Day season.
Read MoreHow To Choose Life
Aug 31, 2002 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh | Rosh Hashanah
We stand at an exciting and important time in the Jewish year. We stand less than two weeks before Rosh Hashanah, when so many of us will spend hours in synagogue praying for a good, healthy and fulfilling new year. We stand in a moment of transition, filled with potential. There is so much we can do, so much we can learn, so much we can become.
Read More“The World Belongs to God”
Aug 24, 2002 By Lewis Warshauer | Commentary | Ki Tavo | Pesah | Rosh Hashanah
The month of Elul is a time for preparation for the High Holy Days. Some industrious hosts and hostesses are already making tzimmes and putting it in the freezer. Other kinds of preparations are being made, too– studying, thinking about and discussing the themes and meanings of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur so that these holidays are not just repetitions of prior years. Even our weekly Torah readings, seemingly disconnected from anything to do with the High Holy Days, can be read through Elul eyeglasses.
Read MoreA Message for 9/11
Sep 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
When the high priest in the days of the Temple emerged from the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, he intoned a special prayer for those inhabitants of ancient Israel who lived at heightened risk from natural catastrophes, that “their homes might not become their graves.”
Read MoreWriting Your Own Obituary
Sep 30, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
A year ago a news story in The New York Times caught for me the essence of our annual High Holy Day season. Under the piquant title, “In their Obituaries, Absent Dads Face Life,” the Times reported on a job training program in Milwaukee with a twist. Its overt goal was to improve the work skills of fathers down on their luck who had abandoned their children. Child support could come only from men able to hold a job. But the program also aimed to imbue them with a sense of responsibility. A few weeks into their training, after a level of trust had been achieved, they were asked to imagine the obituary their children would one day write on their death and to share it with the group.
Read MoreA Meditation on Prayer
Sep 11, 1999 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
According to the Shulhan Arukh, the 16th-century halakhic code which still governs much of Jewish practice, Jews in the synagogue on the High Holy Days are permitted to raise their voices while praying. The reason given intrigues me: because everyone has a mahzor, our neighbor’s voice will not confuse us. Elsewhere, the Shulhan Arukh makes it clear that on all other days of the year, we are expected to address God in the synagogue silently, so as not to disturb those sitting nearby. And this despite a general counsel to actually pronounce the words of our prayers as we recite them. They are to be audible but only to us (Oreh Hayyim 582:9; 101:2-3).
Read MoreTaking a Spiritual Inventory
Sep 21, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
The twentieth-century American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, known for her enlarged and stylized flower studies, once said: “Nobody sees a flower really – it is so small – we haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” Whatever else our High Holy Days might be, they are surely about helping us sharpen our vision. If I had to reduce the drama and choreography, the prayer and music of this protracted season to a single, encompassing goal it would be to enable us to catch another glimpse of what has grown dim or to discover an insight beyond our ken. And because seeing afresh cannot be hurried, we slow down and withdraw, gradually diminishing the bombardment of distractions.
Read MorePluralism in Israel
Oct 2, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
I have been asked often of late why I am spending so much time on the promotion of religious pluralism in Israel. Isn’t it a diversion from the continuity crisis in America, which is, after all, my main concern? The fact is that the two are linked. Israel is a large component of American Jewish identity. Were Israel to become irrelevant or off-putting for American Jews, our ability to withstand the forces of assimilation would be gravely impaired. As an unconditional Zionist, I would support Israel even if it became a benighted shtetl. But such a constricted and coercive state would hold little meaning for our grandchildren.
Read MoreThe Path Towards Perfection
Sep 13, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
When Louis Finkelstein was Chancellor of the Seminary and I was a rabbinical student, he would always start the opening breakfast of the year by reciting the verse from Second Isaiah (57:19): “Peace, peace unto those from afar and near.” consisting of but four words in Hebrew, the verse offered a ringing welcome to students new and old, those coming from abroad and those from nearby. Word was that the custom dated back to Solomon Schechter, whom Dr. Finkelstein revered.
Read MoreOn Baseball and Jewish Endurance
Sep 25, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Seminary lore has it that Solomon Schechter advised the young Louis Ginzberg, when he joined the faculty, to master the game of baseball.
Read MoreRosh Hashanah Day 1
Jan 1, 1980
1 The Lord took note of Sarah as He had promised, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.
Read MoreRosh Hashanah Day 2
Jan 1, 1980
2 Thus said the Lord:
The people escaped from the sword,
Found favor in the wilderness;
When Israel was marching homeward
Rosh Hashanah Day 1
Jan 1, 1980
1 There was a man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, in the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.
Read MoreRosh Hashanah
Jan 1, 1980
1 The Lord took note of Sarah as He had promised, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken.
Read MoreRosh Hashanah Day 2
Jan 1, 1980
1 Some time afterward, God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.”
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