What It Means to Enjoy

What It Means to Enjoy

Sep 1, 2023 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Ki Tavo

In Deuteronomy, the Torah commands us no fewer than eight times to “rejoice” in the fulfillment of religious obligations. Two of those occurrences are in this week’s parashah. The first comes after bringing first fruits to the sanctuary and thanking God for the harvest: And you shall enjoy all the goodness (vesamahta bekhol hatov) that Adonai your God has bestowed upon you and your household, together with the Levite and the stranger in your midst.

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Teki’ot Suite for Shofar and Trumpet

Teki’ot Suite for Shofar and Trumpet

Aug 28, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah

H.L. Miller Cantorial Student Justin Pellis (’25) asked himself, “How can I approach the Shofar in a new way?” To answer, he composed “Te’kiot for Shofar and Trumpet” which debuted last fall and we are pleased to share in preparation for Yamim Noraim.

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Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Aug 25, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | 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. May, a Unitarian pastor, thought it fitting—and rightly so—to grace the tract’s title page with the King James translation of Deuteronomy 23:16–17, which I cite here using the JPS translation: “You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place that he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.”

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Who Are You to Judge?

Who Are You to Judge?

Aug 18, 2023 By Ellie Gettinger | Commentary | Shofetim

Writing about Shofetim (Judges) feels like too much at this particular moment, when the judiciary of both the United States and Israel are beset by challenges. In Israel, judicial reform pursued by the ruling party is shifting the balance of powers, pushing Israeli society to a schism. In the US, questions of judicial ethics are at the forefront. What does it mean to have a lifetime appointment, and what is the line between friendship and bribery? Shofetim positions the need for righteous people to preside over courts while acknowledging the ever-present challenge human nature presents to this ideal.

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Can Institutions Be Nimble? Community Organizing in Tumultuous Times 

Can Institutions Be Nimble? Community Organizing in Tumultuous Times 

Aug 14, 2023 By Stephanie Ruskay | Public Event video | Video Lecture

It’s human nature to build and rebuild, organize and disorganize. Institutions both large and small are grappling with the challenging tasks of shaping the present and future.  Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay, Associate Dean of The Rabbinical School, JTS, will lead us in a process of exploring communal narratives and asking provocative questions that help us discover solutions.  

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To Know or Not to Know

To Know or Not to Know

Aug 11, 2023 By Malka Strasberg Edinger | Commentary | Re'eh | Tishah Be'av

The centralization of cultic worship is one of the major themes in the book of Deuteronomy. However, the place of that worship, the Temple, is described as “the place that God will choose,” with no mention of where that place is to exist. This week’s parashah, parashat Re’eh, introduces the theme that once in the Land of Israel, the Israelites are to worship their God in “hamakom asher yivhar Hashem” (the place that God will choose). This vague phraseology, which only alludes to a specific place but does not specify where that place is, is repeated 21 times throughout the book of Deuteronomy, with 16 of those occurrences in our parashah alone.

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Becoming Jewish Americans: Popular Culture and Protest in Yiddish New York

Becoming Jewish Americans: Popular Culture and Protest in Yiddish New York

Aug 7, 2023 By Annabel Cohen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

For newly arrived Jewish immigrants, New York was a city of contradictions. Here they experienced freedoms and opportunities they hadn’t enjoyed in the “old country,” allowing for the development of a mass popular culture that was at once Yiddish and American. Yet for many Jews, the pace of change was too fast, representing the decline of traditional Jewish values and cultures. Meanwhile, for those who found success on the Yiddish stage, screen, and in the press, America was indeed a “golden country,” but the vast majority of Jewish immigrants lived in extreme poverty and hardship. Home to the first popular Yiddish press and the world’s biggest Yiddish theater district, New York was also soon home to a sizeable Jewish labor movement and an important center for the transnational Jewish left. Using materials featured in the JTS Library’s exhibition, we learn about Jewish immigrants in late-19th to early–20th century New York, and the various ways that they embraced, resisted, and demanded change. 

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Would Our Mother Forget Us?

Would Our Mother Forget Us?

Aug 4, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Eikev

This Shabbat is the second of the seven Shabbatot of consolation that follow Tishah Be’av, and, as on all these Shabbatot, its haftarah comes from the last part of the book of Isaiah. These are highly appropriate passages to console us after we commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem, because they were written by a prophet who lived in exile roughly a generation after the Babylonian empire demolished the Jerusalem Temple, destroyed the Judean state, and exiled much of its population. Because the name of this prophet is unknown, scholars refer to him (or perhaps her; women served as prophets in ancient Israel, as the examples of Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah show) as Deutero-Isaiah or Second Isaiah.

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From Justification to Justice: Evolving Jewish Attitudes Towards Abortion

From Justification to Justice: Evolving Jewish Attitudes Towards Abortion

Jul 31, 2023 By Michal Raucher | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In the 1980s, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards—the Conservative Movement’s central authority on Jewish law—ruled on abortion’s permissibility based on a justification framework. This framework assumes that abortion is generally prohibited but permitted in certain circumstances. They based their position on their reading of particular biblical and rabbinic sources. In the decades that followed, many Jewish institutions in the United States supported abortion rights on similar grounds and using the same texts. More recently, we’ve seen a shift in Jewish attitudes towards abortion. As more Jews have shared their own abortion experiences, their narratives have moved to the forefront and shifted the conversation. Jews are now advocating for abortion rights based on their experiences of abortion and a different reading of classical sources. In this session, we explore why and how this change occurred and consider the impact it might have on abortion rights in the United States.

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The Words Upon Our Hearts

The Words Upon Our Hearts

Jul 28, 2023 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

In this week’s parashah we encounter anew perhaps the most well-known words in our tradition, the first paragraph of the Shema. In these verses, we are commanded to place before us at all times words of Torah. They are to be in our hearts, in our mouths, on our heads and hands, and at the entrances to our homes.

Indeed, according to the rabbinic tradition, the commandment in verse 6 to place these words on our hearts is intended to teach us how to fulfill the foundational commandment to “love God…”

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The Evolution of Law in the Bible

The Evolution of Law in the Bible

Jul 24, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Download Sources Part of the series, The Dynamics of Change  This session has generously been sponsored by Yale Asbell, JTS Trustee. With Dr. Benjamin Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, JTS  Professor Sommer will use laws pertaining to the Sabbath and Passover to show how ritual law evolved in the Bible. During the session, he […]

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Taking Life’s Journey with Torah

Taking Life’s Journey with Torah

Jul 21, 2023 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Devarim

“Hear, O Israel,” the book of Deuteronomy proclaims over and over, the verb always in the second person singular. The Torah wants every one of us to listen carefully, whoever we are, at whatever stage of life. It knows that each person will hear its words somewhat differently—and will perhaps listen differently—this day than in the past.

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Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World, Healing God in Kabbalistic Thought

Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World, Healing God in Kabbalistic Thought

Jul 17, 2023 By Eitan Fishbane | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The term tikkun, which refers to the process of cosmic-divine repair as well as the personal-psychological repair of the human soul, was central to Jewish mystical thought and literature. The idea and practice flourished especially in the Zohar and related texts in 13th- and 14th-century Spain; in the teachings of Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria, and other Kabbalists of 16th-century Tzfat; and in the Kabbalah of modern eastern European Hasidism. In this session, we will delve into sources that understand tikkun olam as an act of healing the Divine Self, which has the potential of bringing God closer to our world.

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Upgrading the Torah—and the World

Upgrading the Torah—and the World

Jul 14, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

Is God’s law perfect? Most of us would assume that anything created by an omniscient and omnipotent being must have no flaws. But a story in today’s parashah suggests otherwise—in a manner that shows a surprising similarity to a key concept of Jewish mysticism.

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The Power of Words: How What We Say Affects Us and Those Around Us

The Power of Words: How What We Say Affects Us and Those Around Us

Jul 10, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture

How does our speech affect us and others both for good and ill? How can changing our speech impact our character and our relationships with others?  Dr. Eliezer Diamond guides us in the study of both traditional sources and contemporary discussions as we seek to answer these questions.

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Life After Moses

Life After Moses

Jul 7, 2023 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Pinehas

In chapter 27, God announces Moses’s impending death and Joshua is appointed successor. Like his brother Aaron before him, Moses is instructed to ascend a mountain and view the Promised Land. Moses too will not enter the land because of a transgression (in his case the striking of the rock). But there is one key difference in God’s announcements to the brothers of their impending deaths. To Aaron, God explicitly commands the passing of the priesthood to his son Eleazar, a process marked by the stripping of Aaron’s priestly garments and their transfer to his son. But Moses must initiate the appointment of his successor. Why would God announce a successor to Aaron and not Moses? Did God not have a plan for Moses to hand over the reins?

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Dreaming of Being Balaam

Dreaming of Being Balaam

Jun 30, 2023 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

The story of the heathen prophet Balaam—hired by Moabite king Balak ben Tzippor to curse the people Israel—is altogether strange. It concerns events happening outside the Israelite camp and seemingly unknown to them, characters we’ve not yet met, and a talking donkey. Its tone ranges from burlesquely funny to surreal.

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Patient Change, Slow Influence: The Model of the Rabbis of Late Antiquity

Patient Change, Slow Influence: The Model of the Rabbis of Late Antiquity

Jun 26, 2023 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Download Sources Part of the series, The Dynamics of Change  With Dr. David Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, JTS  Perhaps the most important change-agents in all of Jewish history were the Rabbis of Late Antiquity. It is they who transformed Judaism—and Jews—from a Temple-based religion to one that needed no […]

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Did Korah Get a Bum Rap?

Did Korah Get a Bum Rap?

Jun 23, 2023 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Korah

The memory of Huey Long, and the continued concern over the role of demagoguery in American politics, comes to mind this week because we see a prime example of it in Parashat Korah—the figure of Korah himself. (The character of Dathan, played by Edgar G. Robinson, in The Ten Commandments, was essentially based on Korah). Korah was long vilified by the Rabbinic Sages, and of course the Torah itself condemns him as the paradigmatic rebel against the divinely sanctioned leadership of Moses and Aaron.

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Between the Lines: Where I Am

Between the Lines: Where I Am

Jun 20, 2023 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Dana Shem-Ur‘s book is a piercing novel about life abroad in a cultural setting not one’s own: Reut is an Israeli translator living in Paris with a French husband and their child. She’s made sacrifices for her family but now feels a simmering discontent and estrangement that erupts at a festive dinner party with affluent, intellectual friends. During the sumptuous meal, she navigates a tangle of cultural codes with which she’s never been fully at ease. This is a novel about big life choices that examines a woman’s attitudes toward belonging to a man, to a culture, to a language. Where I Am is an intimate, witty book portraying a profoundly human yearning to stop everything, to lay down one’s head, and to feel―if only for a moment―at home.

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