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These Lights Themselves Are Holy
Dec 4, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
Soon we light the candles of Hanukkah, which symbolize so many things. In this reflection, let us turn aside for a moment from the complex history and theology, and allow ourselves to enter the realm of kodesh—that which is holy. Hanerot Halalu (Siddur Sim Shalom, 193) is a curious text that we read, or sing, after lighting the hanukkiyah. It is not a blessing or a prayer, for it is not addressed to God; rather, it is a reminder to all who are gathered around the Hanukkah lights that we should not make use of them for any worldly purpose, for they are holy (kodesh hem).
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Shomer Yisra’el—The One Who Guards Israel
Nov 28, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
In the weekday liturgy, after the ‘Amidah, we find in the siddur a little-known sequence of prayer texts known as tachanun (supplications); it can be found in Siddur Sim Shalom of the Conservative Movement, pages 59 through 63. It is not difficult to detect some ambivalence about tachanun, for there is a long list of days on which it is to be omitted, including Shabbat and all Holy Days, and all days of celebration—even the birthdays of famous rabbis.
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Assumptions and Appearances
Nov 28, 2012 By Nancy Abramson | Commentary | Vayishlah
Things are not always as they appear to be. And when assumptions are based on circumstantial or incomplete evidence, we are often surprised or disappointed by what unfolds.
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Angels of Peace
Nov 27, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayishlah
This week’s parashah opens with the rising tension between Jacob and Esau.
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Breaking Routine to Encounter God
Nov 21, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayetzei
With the threat of fratricide hanging over his head and in light of his parents’ wish, Jacob makes a quick exit from Beersheba and heads toward Haran, where he will presumably find a loving and loyal wife.
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Prayers for the State of Israel
Nov 21, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
With sorrow in our hearts, we turn this week to the dangers facing Medinat Yisrael, the State of Israel, and all who live there. The circulation of “composed prayer texts” does not in any way preclude each person from pouring out his or her inner dreams and desires to God. It is the role of the rabbinic leaders of the community to prepare words that express the thoughts, hopes, and dreams within all of our hearts, and give concrete form to the value and ideals we cherish. Rabbi Reuven Hammer writes this week from the Jerusalem: “ . . . I have added Psalm 91 to our services here during this period. I think it is particularly appropriate for this particular situation with its reference to arrows.”
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How Angels Make Us Better People
Nov 20, 2012 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Vayetzei
I’ve never thought much about mal’akhim (literally, angels), and I wonder if Jacob had thought about them either, before the encounter that took place when he departed the Land of Israel in flight from his brother’s wrath.
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Could “All” Be in Vain? A Liturgical Response to Ecclesiastes
Nov 14, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Sukkot
The opening words of the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) have troubled those who read the Bible for a very long time, and remain a challenge—ancient, but still provocative. “Havel havalim, . . . hakol havel” (In vain, in vain, . . . it is all futility) (Eccles. 1, 2). Last week we began to look at the passage “mah anu meh chayyeinu” found in the preliminary service (daily and Shabbat), and I noted the extraordinary feature of this “prayer”—the questions included within the text (Who are we? What is our life? etc.). If we think of prayer as addressed to God, it is remarkable to find within this prayer that we ourselves are questioned. The final words of the paragraph (in the Ashkenazic version) bring us face to face with the troubling opening of Ecclesiastes: “ki hakol havel.”(“because everything is futile” or “because everything is in vain”).
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Wellsprings of Hope
Nov 14, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Toledot
As famine envelops the Land of Israel, Isaac seeks refuge in the territory of the Philistines.
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Finding Our Way (and God’s) in the World
Nov 13, 2012 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. Yet Rebecca’s strength has dreadful consequences.
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From Suspense to Sensitivity
Nov 7, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
Immediately after the drama of the binding of Isaac, we read Parashat Hayyei Sarah. Why the juxtaposition of these two parashiyot?
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“Who Are We?” A “Prayer” That Asks Questions (Part 1)
Nov 7, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
Many of us are accustomed to the idea that the “prayers” we find in the siddur will be filled with praises for God or with requests. In the first paragraph of our core prayer, the ‘Amidah, we praise God as “ha’el hagadol hagibbor vehanora” (the great, mighty and awesome God), and then continue a little further with requests for wisdom, health, good harvest, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, peace—and that our prayer be heard. There are, of course, many further examples in the pslams, in rabbinic texts, and in the great medieval poems.
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The Power of Words
Nov 7, 2012 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
Where Sarah and Ishmael seem to fade from the scene, Abraham actively prepares for his death. The details of the burial of Sarah and finding a wife for Isaac that occupy the parashah rest in stark contrast to the death narratives of both Abraham’s wife and firstborn son.
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A Prayer in the Face of the Storm
Oct 31, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
“Prayer invites God’s presence to suffuse our spirits; God’s will to prevail in our lives. Prayer might not bring water to parched fields, nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city. But prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, rebuild a weakened will.” —Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman
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Prolepsis: How the Bible Tells Us the Future
Oct 31, 2012 By David Marcus | Commentary | Vayera
Regular screen watchers know that if in an opening scene the camera pans in on a detail like a dagger or a bicycle, then that detail—the dagger or the bicycle—will somehow have an important role to play later on in the movie. Known as foreshadowing, this cinematic technique has its parallel in literature in the rhetorical device known as prolepsis, which indicates a future event that is presumed to have occurred.
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Planting Trees, Planting Hesed
Oct 31, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera
Just after the expulsion of Hagar and immediately before the binding of Isaac, a curious and somewhat cryptic episode appears in Genesis 21.
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A Palace in Flames
Oct 27, 2012 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Lekh Lekha
What inspires one to leave home, to embrace mystery, to seek insight into the nature of our world?
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Trusting the Journey
Oct 24, 2012 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Like many of the richest parts of the Torah, the opening lines of Parashat Lekh Lekha are fraught with ambiguity: “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Gen. 12:1).
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Abram’s Trek, a Journey of Generations
Oct 24, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
At the opening of this week’s parashah, Abram, the nascent visionary and patriarch of the Israelites, is given the divine command to separate from all that is known and familiar.
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Psalm 30: Dedication of the “Inner Temple”
Oct 17, 2012 By Samuel Barth | Commentary
Psalm 30 has the enigmatic introduction, “A Psalm of David for hannukat habayit—the dedication of the Temple”; enigmatic because David never built or saw the Temple. It was his dream, but a dream unrealized in his lifetime and brought to reality by his son, Solomon. So we wonder how it came to be that we have a song (psalm) ascribed to David for an occasion he could not have seen, and we also wonder why this psalm became a part of traditional Jewish liturgy, always recited at the end of the preliminary blessings, followed by the mourners’ kaddish (see, for example, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Siddur Sim Shalom, page 14).
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