Search Results

The John Leopold and Martha Dellheim Senior Recital 2025

Jan 27, 2025

Graduating Cantorial School seniors Roseanne Benjamin, Rachel Black, and Justin Zvi Pellis, performed at an exciting evening of music and spirit, sharing their talents and their vision for the 21st-century cantorate. The recital featured a wide range of Jewish music in Hebrew and Yiddish, as well as hazzanut, musical theatre, and Israeli folk and art songs. Choral works and compositions written and composed by our graduates were also be performed. The soloists, along with guest artists, were be accompanied by pianist Joyce Rosenzweig, JTS adjunct instructor, and the combined choir of the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, conducted by Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn.

Moses’s Lessons in Interfaith Dialogue

Jan 24, 2025 By Claire Davidson Bruder & Sherouk Ahmed | Commentary | Va'era

In the first week of 2025, the Washington Theological Consortium hosted a weeklong interfaith dialogue program at the United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. Third-year JTS rabbinical student and Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue program manager Claire Davidson Bruder participated in this program, alongside other Jewish, Christian, and Muslim seminary students. The following d’var Torah is […]

A Turn for the Better

Jan 17, 2025 By Ariella Rosen | Commentary | Shemot

In Parashat Shemot, it appears that Moses took conscious steps to operate as a lone bystander, taking action that seems unlikely had a larger crowd been present. Raised in Pharaoh’s household, now an adult, Moses went out to walk among the Hebrew slaves as they labored. After witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, “He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Exod. 2:12).

Angel or Avatar?

Jan 10, 2025 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Vayehi

The second of these verses is often sung aloud in a beautiful melody by Abie Rotenberg when children have their aliyah on Simhat Torah and by some parents at bedtime each night. That melody has made these words familiar to many, but their meaning is not clear. Who, exactly, does Jacob call upon to bless the lads?

A Tale of Two Dreamers

Jan 3, 2025 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Vayiggash

Yet while the incongruity of Jacob’s response to Pharaoh’s question is in some sense humorous, Jacob’s words are heart-rending. They grow out of the existential and ideological divide that separates Jacob from his son. One can speak of three differences between their perspectives.

The World that Isn’t There

Dec 27, 2024 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Miketz

Years ago, I read a book by the author Chuck Klosterman titled But What if We’re Wrong? The premise of the book is to attempt to “think about the present as if it were the past,” or in other words, to consider whether despite our current devotion to rationality and the scientific method, there are aspects of our modern world about which we might be profoundly wrong?

What Makes Groups Reject Their Own?

Dec 20, 2024 By Rabbi Yael Shmilovitz | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Vayeshev

The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy. The Wizard of Oz in Wicked (2024) Joseph’s brothers resent him so much they can’t even stand the sight of him: וַיִּשְׂנְאוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יָכְלוּ דַּבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלֹם (Gen 37:4)—they hated him so much they could not dabro leshalom. The commentators […]

Hanukkah, Jewish Power, and the Future of Israel Education

Dec 16, 2024 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Hanukkah

Every year at Hanukkah, Jews everywhere celebrate the Maccabees’ military uprising against oppression. But in our day, many younger American Jews are experiencing discomfort with some of the ways that Israel uses power to fight its enemies and defend its interests, which has led to decreased support and weakened connection to the State.   

How should education about Israel— and advocacy on behalf of Israel—change in coming years? What lessons should Jews take away from events on and off campus in the wake of October 7, 2023?

When Jacob Met Esau: Facing Our Fears

Dec 13, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Vayishlah

The story told in Parashat Vayishlah of the meeting between Jacob and Esau is well known. But a closer consideration of the details of the tale speaks to very contemporary concerns. The overall backdrop to the scene is the pervasive feeling of fear. Esau, Jacob learns, is approaching, and there are 400 men with him. Is it a lavish welcoming party? (This is not unheard of in the Middle East—I myself experienced just such a welcoming party in Egypt when I was traveling there with some American Cabinet officials in 1980.) Or is it a prelude to belligerency? Are the loud sounds they are making just the sounds of 400 excited people from a demonstrative culture, or are those cries of war? Jacob assumed the worst. He didn’t bother asking the messengers who reported Esau’s approach whether the 400 men were armed or not. Jacob reflexively got ready for battle

Communicating Across Divides

Dec 9, 2024 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Argument is essential to Jewish life—it forms the basis of the Talmud and the classic Jewish joke about two Jews, three opinions. Yet today the challenge of talking across differences often seems insurmountable.

Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, director of the Block Kolker Center for Spiritual Life, shares insight into how to communicate with those whose opinion differs from yours. She will include tactics for creating structures that enable civility and explore the traps to avoid in your community.

Going Out to Meet God and History

Dec 6, 2024 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Vayetzei

In what ways do the Jewish people, the descendants of Jacob, still reside in his “house”? How can we, who bear the name by which Jacob will be called in next week’s Torah portion, become the Israel whom Jacob henceforth struggles to become? I’d like to suggest, using the indispensable categories for Jewish self-understanding contributed by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, that Jacob is party to the “covenant of fate,” while Israel signifies the “covenant of destiny.” The “covenant of fate” is imposed on Jews by history and circumstance, while the “covenant of destiny” is one that Jews are called on to embrace in partnership with God.

Gleanings from “Zionism: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond”

Dec 2, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Public Event video | Video Lecture

How is Zionism finding expression in our communities? What are the challenges and opportunities in educating younger generations around these ideas? Rabbi Gordon Tucker, Vice Chancellor of Religious Life and Engagement, shares his thoughts from the convening and the new models of engagement with Israel that emerged from our conversations.

On the Perils of Pregnancy: A Letter to Rivkah

Nov 29, 2024 By Rabbi Annie Lewis | Commentary | Toledot

Before you bravely took leave of your family, they blessed you that through your line would come thousands upon thousands of descendants. When you struggled to conceive, Yitzhak pleaded with God for you to bear children.

The Torah records how the boys thrashed about in your womb. וַיִּתְרֹצְצוּ הַבָּנִים בְּקִרְבָּהּ. You cried out, אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי, “If this is how it is, why do I exist?” (Gen. 25:22).

The Origins of the Nation Israel: Biblical, Historical, and Archaeological Data

Nov 25, 2024 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

What can we learn from the Bible’s narratives about the emergence of the nation Israel? Some streams insist on the literal infallibility of biblical history, while others assert that the Jews are not indigenous to Canaan/Israel/Palestine.

Considering biblical texts and archaeological evidence, this session examines the origin of the Israelites as an ethnic and political unit. How does the debate on biblical authority resonate both within and outside academic circles?

“Ger Vetoshav”: A Lesson on Vulnerabilities and Humility

Nov 22, 2024 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Abraham rose, as he had to, from his wailing, because there was a necessary and sacred task to perform. And at that moment of needing to bury his dead, an enormity confronted him. Here’s how Abraham put it: “ger vetoshav anokhi”—I am merely a stranger (ger), come to be an alien resident (toshav) here. I have no place; I have no accumulated rights and privileges.

Aiden Pink – Senior Sermon (RS ’25)

Nov 21, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Hayyei Sarah

Aiden Pink – Hayyei Sarah

Power in Pluralism: Jewish Community Organizing after October 7

Nov 18, 2024 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In American and Israeli societies, we often focus on what divides us and the differences in how we respond to tragedies. This session focuses on activism and organizing in Jewish religious communities across denominations, both in Israel and the US. How have we pulled together and what are the outcomes of this work?

Can You Spell Check the Tanakh?

Nov 15, 2024 By David Zev Moster | Commentary | Vayera

There is a puzzling word in this week’s parashah: מֵחֲטוֹ “from sinning” (Genesis 20:6). God appears to Abimelekh in a dream and says, “I myself have kept you from sinning (מֵחֲטוֹ) against me [with Sarah].” The word מֵחֲטוֹ is unusual because it should be spelled with an alef, either as מֵחֲטֹא in 1 Samuel 12:23 or as מֵחֲטוֹא in Psalm 39:2. We know there should be an alef because the Hebrew root חטא “to sin” appears 603 times in the Tanakh and has an alef 99.2% of the time. So, is the missing alef of מֵחֲטוֹ a spelling error? It depends on who you ask.