Search Results
Back to JTS Torah Online's Main pageGod’s Human Partner
Jan 13, 2023 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemot
This week marks the 50th yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z”l. When visiting mourners in the immediate days after their loss, we comfort them by invoking God as Ha-Makom, the One who is present in every Place, as if to affirm that even when darkness befalls us, God is not absent. The absolute omnipresence of God in this unique divine name captures the very essence of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s resolve and courage to believe after the Holocaust.
Read MoreParenting Lessons from the Parashah
Jan 6, 2023 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Vayehi
Parashat Vayehi, the final parashah in the book of Genesis, presents the Israelites on the cusp of a major transition. While Genesis highlights family relations, Exodus introduces the idea of peoplehood. Genesis closes with a family gathering and, by next week, the Israelites will be described as a nation. What lessons does Genesis, and Vayehi in particular, offer about effective parenting? And what can the Torah teach us about the relationship between family and nation?
Read MoreThe Gradual Journey to Forgiveness
Dec 30, 2022 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayiggash
Parashat Vayiggash opens with the dramatic encounter between Joseph and his older brother, Judah. Judah, who years earlier had cooperated with his brothers to betray Joseph, seems to be on the verge of losing his father’s other favored son, Benjamin, as well. He makes an impassioned plea to Joseph, offering himself as a hostage in Benjamin’s stead. As it turns out, Judah’s altruism is more than Joseph can withstand. While he was able to hold back and hide his identity numerous times, letting his brothers squirm in discomfort before the strange Egyptian man, this time is different. Joseph reveals his identity. The moment is one of closeness, of reconciliation, and of Joseph’s recognition that it was not his brothers’ deeds but rather God’s plan that had guided the events of his latter years.
Read MoreJoseph, Hanukkah, and the Dilemmas of Assimilation
Dec 23, 2022 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
Ruminations about assimilation come naturally to Jews in North America during the winter holiday season. How much should a parent insist that Hanukkah is part of public school celebrations that give students a heavy dose of Christmas? How often should one remind store clerks who innocently ask Jewish children which gifts they hope to receive from Santa this year that there are other faiths observed in our communities, and other holidays? Intermarried couples are familiar with conversations about having a Christmas tree at home, or going to midnight mass, or allowing their kids to open gifts Christmas morning under the tree at their cousins’ home. The Hanukkah story is the perfect stimulus for such reflections, especially when read, as some historians do, not as a conflict between Jews and a tyrannical government, but as a dispute among Jews themselves over which Greek customs are acceptable and which cross the line to assimilation or apostasy.
Read MoreJTS Dayenu Circle: Eight Days of Climate Torah
Dec 18, 2022
This year for Hanukkah, the JTS Dayenu Circle – The Jewish Theological Seminary’s chapter of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action – is sharing Eight Days of Climate Torah. The Hanukkah story is a reminder that the Jewish community can take bold collective action to change our fate. We hope these teachings from JTS […]
Read MoreThe Power of Tamar
Dec 16, 2022 By Aaron Leven | Commentary | Vayeshev
Parashat Vayeshev begins our four-week journey through the story of Yosef. Yosef’s narrative, perhaps the most developed and detailed character arc outside of Moshe’s, is one of growth, reconciliation, and redemption. And yet, in the very middle of our parashah, we confront the deeply problematic story of Yehudah and Tamar. For many readers, this is a challenging story. Why is it placed in the middle of the parashah? How are we supposed to feel about the characters? Does the story have anything to teach us?
Read MoreCan We Be Empowered by Patriarchal Texts?
Dec 9, 2022 By Alison L. Joseph | Commentary | Vayishlah
I have long been bothered by the story of Dinah in Genesis 34. This narrative, often referred to as the “Rape of Dinah,” is difficult to read, not only because sexual violence against a young woman is employed as a plot device, but also because I’m not sure why the story is included in the Torah in the first place. My concern with the story is more acute when I read it within our liturgical calendar as just another episode in the Jacob cycle (Gen. 25–35).
Read MoreWas Laban Really Worse than Pharaoh?
Dec 2, 2022 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Vayetzei
According to the Passover Haggadah, Laban, Jacob’s father-in-law, is the archvillain of Jewish history, even more dangerous than the Pharaoh who enslaved the people of Israel and launched a campaign of male infanticide. Yet, after this provocative comparison, the Haggadah leaves the rest as an exercise for the reader. Laban “sought to uproot it all,” but how? What makes Laban so dangerous?
Read MoreTwo Nations in Your Belly
Nov 25, 2022 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Toledot
In the world of the ancient Rabbis who gave us Judaism—the world of the Talmud and the Midrash, from the first century through the seventh century CE—our Rabbis identified Esau / Edom with the Roman Empire. In doing so, they took on both aspects of that Empire—the earlier pagan Roman Empire and the later Christian Roman Empire, and conflated them into one image of Esau, forever at odds with Jacob / Israel. For the Rabbis, Esau most often was depicted as the enemy, our oppressor, “The Man” who kept us beneath his boot.
Read MoreRebecca the Patriarch
Nov 18, 2022 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
This week’s parashah, Hayyei Sarah (Genesis 23:1–25:18), is about continuing the line, producing progeny. The parashah opens with a report of Sarah’s death at 120 years old. It closes with a list of Abraham’s children from concubines and Ishmael’s many offspring (25:1–18). But the central story of the parashah, the entire chapter of Genesis 24, is about finding a wife for Isaac.
Read MoreWomen of Faith
Nov 11, 2022 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Vayera
Abraham passed God’s litmus test of faith. God commands Abraham to take his beloved son Isaac to the land of Moriah and kill him. Faithful Abraham does not hesitate. Genesis 22 may be the most loved and hated story in the Torah by every reader, no matter what their faith. Certainly, generations of Jews have struggled to make sense of this story, and of the father and God it portrays.
Read MoreLearning as a Lifelong Experience
Nov 4, 2022 By Edward L. Greenstein | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
An attentive reading of the Torah and of Parashat Lekh Lekha in particular leads to a very different understanding. Abraham was a learner—he needed to grow in his trust of the Deity, and in himself. In this sense, Abraham’s career models the path of a lifelong learner.
Read MoreAfter the Flood
Oct 28, 2022 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Noah
Today it’s common to find divrei torah that use Parashat Noah to raise awareness about our impact on the environment. Yet I recently discovered a voice from the first stirrings of modernity that seemed to already intuit, within a theological framework, the devastating impact of humans on the global environment. For Obadiah Sforno (1475–1550), the “lawlessness” during the days of Noah did not just cause God to flood to earth. It was a force capable of ruining the climate and planet, and thereby shaping the course of human history ever after.
Read MoreThe World of Creation in Each of Us
Oct 21, 2022 By Israel Gordan | Commentary | Bereishit
One of the most well-known, and controversial, passages in the Torah comes after God creates man and woman: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea the birds of the sky, and all living things that creep on earth’” (Gen. 1:28).
Read MoreImpermanence by Design
Oct 14, 2022 By Grace Gleason | Commentary | Sukkot
If your sukkot are anything like mine, something usually falls off or blows away at some point during the week. This was true of my backyard sukkah in North Carolina, whose hanging decorations were not securely fastened enough to withstand the wind, and the skhakh of my Upper West Side balcony, which unfortunately ended up on someone else’s roof.
Sukkot are impermanent by design. This is our lesson and our meditation throughout the week. In the Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 23a), our rabbis argue about how strong a wind a sukkah should be able to withstand in order to be considered kosher: does it need to be able to withstand a strong wind, or just average wind? We can feel the tension—on the one hand, we want our sukkot to be strong and sturdy, on the other hand, the holiday pushes us to acknowledge that they may just blow away. The Mishnah in Sukkah 22a suggests that in the ideal sukkah, one should be able to see stars through the roof—in order, I think, that we might contemplate the great expanse of the universe, and our relative temporality and insignificance.
Read MoreMaking Every Word Count
Oct 7, 2022 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Ha'azinu
Ha’azinu is remarkable in two respects: what it says, and how it chooses to say it. My focus here will be the latter, but let’s note with regard to the former that in this, his final address to the Children of Israel before a set of farewell blessings, Moses reviews all of his people’s past, present, and future. He begins by calling on the God who had called Israel into being and called him to God’s service. He reminds Israel that God has chosen them and still cares for their well-being. He prophesies that despite all that God and Moses have said and done, Israel will abandon God, as they had in the past. God will punish them, as in the past, but never to the point of utter destruction. In the end, God and Israel will reconcile.
Read MoreThe Courage to Hope
Sep 30, 2022 By Ayelet Cohen | Commentary | Shabbat Shuvah | Vayeilekh | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Shabbat Shuvah represents the place between hope and fear; between transformation and unrealized aspirations. We may have made big promises on Rosh Hashanah, resolving to make significant changes in our lives, entering the year with a sense of excitement and optimism. But as Yom Kippur draws closer, we become more attuned to our own shortcomings. So much is beyond our control. Changing old patterns is arduous, the path uncertain. Confronting our own limitations, we can feel afraid and alone. The spiritual work of this moment lies in discerning the difference between acknowledging our limitations and succumbing to fear.
Read MoreConfronting Our “Concealed Things”
Sep 23, 2022 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Nitzavim | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
The concealed things concern the Lord our God; but with overt matters, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching. (Deut. 29:28)
There is, however, another reading of this verse, given by Nahmanides (Ramban), in the 13th century, and it is one that forces us to a certain deeper level of introspection at this time of year.
Here’s a paraphrase of what he says: The “concealed things” are not sins committed by others that are out of our view, and thus out of our control. Rather, they are the sins committed by us, but that are nevertheless out of our view and awareness. As long as we are not aware of them, they will be known only to God. But they are only out of our control because they are not known to us.
Read MoreCount Your Blessings
Sep 16, 2022 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Ki Tavo
Ki Tavo is a Torah portion with three parts of interest. First, there are the curses and imprecations with which God threatens the Jewish people if we do not do God’s will. As we do when we read the Torah in synagogue, we will quickly and quietly move past the scary stuff.
Second, we are commanded to bring our first fruits to the Jerusalem Temple once we have settled the land. And then we are commanded to offer them to the priest in acknowledgement of God’s beneficence. When we do so, we recite a fixed liturgy, reinforced, no doubt, by hearing the many Israelites ahead of us in the line reciting the exact same words as the priest prompts them. “Repeat after me . . .” he says.
Arami oved avi—My ancestor was a wandering Aramean.” (Deut. 26:5)
What Does the Torah Really Say about Cross-Dressing?
Sep 9, 2022 By Joy Ladin | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
Every year, Ki Tetzei returns us to the only verse of the Torah that seems to speak about transgender and nonbinary people, particularly about those like me who used to be known as “transsexuals,” people born physically male or female who identify so strongly with the opposite gender that we can only live authentically as that gender: A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to your God. (Num. 22:5)
Read MoreSUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS
Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.