JTS Torah Commentary

Hearing Our Own Stories

Dec 22, 2017 By Zohar Atkins | Commentary | Vayiggash

Although we know how it ends, this week’s Torah reading can be, by turns, anxiety-provoking, cathartic, and unsettling. We know a reconciliation between the brothers will take place, but we don’t fully understand how. We know a peace deal will be reached, but we suspect that, like all new agreements, its character will be tenuous, fragile, and ad hoc, its consensus constructed atop a minefield of lingering resentments and fundamentally conflicting narratives.

The Life of a Book

Dec 15, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Every book has a life of its own, sometimes mundane and sometimes astonishing. The life of the book in which this page is found has been quite extraordinary. The book is a Hebrew Bible. It was born of fine parchment and ink, shaped by craftsmen and scribes who spared no effort to make it the best of its kind. It was written for a wealthy family in Toledo, Spain, in the 15th century, in order that they “and their children and their children’s children” might study it forever. Remarkably, it has survived to this day.

The Hanukkah Story I Need to Hear This Year

Dec 15, 2017 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Hanukkah

Stories have great power. We tell stories about ourselves and about our communities because they give our lives meaning, and they help us navigate between the past and the future. We use stories to help us make sense of the world and our place in it. Not far behind the seemingly innocent plots of many of the stories we tell about our community’s religious history lie profound cultural responses to our most pressing questions about what it means to be a human being and how to live life well.

Lighting Up the Dark Days

Dec 11, 2017 By Julia Andelman | Short Video | Hanukkah

Yosef: A Light in the Darkness

Dec 8, 2017 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Vayeshev | Hanukkah

Parashat Vayeshev takes us deep into the pain and alienation of being human, of yearning from a low place of darkness and suffering. And yet the narrative also conveys the power of hope—a longing for God and redemption, for spiritual and moral healing in our human relationships.

Restoring a Commentary Maligned

Dec 8, 2017 By JTS Alumni | Commentary

By Dr. Morris M. Faierstein (GS ’75)

The Ze’enah U-Re’enah was first published about 1610 and has since been reprinted 275 times. Despite this great popularity, this edition is the first complete annotated critical translation of this classic to be published. Since the end of the nineteenth century, conventional wisdom has held that the Ze’enah U-Re’enah was a Yiddish translation of the humash written for women and ignorant men who could not understand the text in Hebrew. 

Senior Sermons: Class of 2018

Dec 6, 2017

Breaking the Bank: The High Cost of Low-Income Living

Dec 6, 2017 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Why does it cost so much to be poor? NYC is an expensive place to live—and it’s the most expensive for New Yorkers living from paycheck to paycheck.

A discussion about how low-income New Yorkers manage their financial lives and the challenges they face, exploring how diverse resources, from loan funds to check cashers to fintech startups, are responding to the financial needs of struggling New Yorkers

Senior Sermons: Class of 2019

Dec 6, 2017

Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World

Dec 4, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Mark R. Cohen’s new book Maimonides and the Merchants suggests that, like the Geonim before him, Maimonides wished to provide Jewish merchants an alternative and comparable forum to the Islamic legal system and thereby shore up an important cornerstone of communal autonomy.

Wrestling the Angels and the Demons within Us

Dec 1, 2017 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Vayishlah

In this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Vayishlah, we read of the patriarch Jacob’s journey home with his family after freeing himself and his entire clan from his father-in-law, Laban’s, control. Along the route, Jacob prepares himself for his eventual reunion with his older twin brother Esau, whom he fears to be vengeful. Right in the middle of the parashah, in between the description of Jacob’s preparations and his actual meeting with Esau, Jacob is involved in a transformative experience: a physical struggle with a stranger.

A Sage for Today

Dec 1, 2017 By Barry Holtz | Commentary

In my new biography of Rabbi Akiva, I have tried to draw upon the latest scholarship about rabbinic stories to present the outlines of his life anew for our times, in the light of what we know about how to read these stories from our tradition and about the historical context of the ancient Jewish world. My goal was to present the various stories about Akiva’s life in an intellectually serious but accessible manner, highlighting their literary character and trying to discern the ways that Akiva’s story might speak to people today. 

Can the Tribes of Modern Israel Dwell Together?

Nov 29, 2017 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video

On the 70th anniversary of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, a major step in the creation of Israel, the partitions within Israeli society threaten the very future of the State. Can the divisions be bridged between Israel’s secular, national religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab citizens? Can they talk to each other and work together to forge a new partnership? And what is the role of caring Diaspora Jews in achieving this goal?

Escaping a Toxic Relationship

Nov 24, 2017 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Vayetzei

Poor Jacob is triply triangulated in Parashat Vayetzei! His boss, Laban, is not only his uncle, Rebecca’s older brother, but also his father-in-law, Leah and Rachel’s father. Leah and Rachel are bitter rivals, Leah resenting Jacob’s love for Rachel, and Rachel wishing for children when God has blessed only Leah with fertility. Complicating this tangle of relationships is the fact that Jacob and Laban work together, and Laban is not a fair employer. 

What Makes a Book “Torah”?

Nov 24, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

In the manuscript age, what distinguished “Torah” from other writing? One of the key answers to this question is that manuscripts were fluid and each copy therefore different from any other, while Torah—as the word of God and the source of Jewish tradition—had to be precise and unchanging.

A Family of Covenant

Nov 17, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

The stories of Genesis are presented as family portraits, but simultaneously they describe the origins of a religious civilization. How did the people of Israel acquire and maintain its distinctive religious mission? Genesis offers not only a window into Israel’s past, but a blueprint for its future. Implicit is an invitation to contribute to this unfolding narrative, attaching the threads of our lives to the tapestry woven by our ancestors. 

Speaking to God, Speaking to People

Nov 17, 2017 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Text Study

By Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin (RS ’90)

Adonai, open my lips that my mouth may speak your praise. (Psalms 51:17)

My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from deceit. (BT Berakhot 17a, based on Psalms 34:14)

At different stages of my life prayer has been a challenge, but I have found it meaningful to think not just about each individual prayer but how the structure of the service helps us experience different facets of prayer. 

Leaving Home

Nov 10, 2017 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

To the best of my knowledge, Hayyei Sarah contains the only instance in Tanakh of a parent asking his child’s wishes. Laban and Betuel cannot come to an agreement with Abraham’s servant—who we’ll call Eliezer—about whether Rebecca should remain in Haran for a time or depart immediately to Canaan. And so, they ask Rebecca to state her preference. Contrary to her family’s express wishes, Rebecca decides to leave immediately.

A Time for Silence and a Time for Speaking

Nov 10, 2017 By Matthew Goldstone | Commentary | Text Study

Whoever is able to protest against the [sins of the] people of his household and does not protest is caught in the [sins] of his household; against [the sins of] the people of his city [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the people of his city; against [the sins of] the whole world [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the whole world.

—Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b

Listening, Love, and Citizenship: Healing the Fractures in American Society

Nov 8, 2017 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A panel discussion exploring what it means to be a citizen of the United States in today’s fractured society. What are the basic skills of citizenship that have eroded in our country? How can we learn to listen to and love one another to become responsible citizens?