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Lilli Shvartsmann – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)
Jan 25, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Beshallah
Beshallah All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons
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Timely Insights, Timeless Wisdom
Jan 22, 2024 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Join JTS’s renowned faculty to learn about their current work and greatest passions. Drawing on their expertise, scholars will offer inspiring learning and expose us to new ideas and insights that help us connect the Jewish past with the Jewish future. Topics will include:
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“Zion in the Diaspora”: How Jews Imagined They Lived in Zion Wherever They Actually Lived
Jan 22, 2024 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Jews through the ages have hoped that one day the Messiah would come, leading them back to Zion. But in the meantime, they lived all over the world, making homes in one diaspora or another. And remarkably, they often spoke of their diaspora homes as “Zion,” a place of redemption long before actual redemption. In this session, we will examine multiple such teachings and traditions including teachings of the great Maharal of Prague (16th century), early Hasidic masters (18th century), and others. We will consider what it means for Jews to imagine themselves in their eternal homes while living abroad
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Between the Lines: Soloveitchik’s Children
Jan 22, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Professor Arnold Eisen, chancellor emeritus and professor of Jewish Thought at JTS and author Daniel Ross Goodman discuss Soloveitchik’s Children, a book that delves into how three of Soloveitchik’s most influential disciples in Jewish thought and philosophy—Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, Rabbi David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks—learned from and adapted his teachings in their own ways, while advancing his philosophical and theological legacy.
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What Do Tefillin Do?
Jan 19, 2024 By Lara Rodin | Commentary | Bo
Our sages explained that the placement of our tefillin as a “sign upon our hands” and a “reminder on our foreheads” is meant to represent the intellect (tefillin shel rosh) and the physicality (tefillin shel yad) of a person. For Keli Yakar, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, both the tefillin that sits on our arm and the tefillin that sits above our eyes are meant to represent the dichotomy that is at play between thought and action.
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Between Moscow, Kyiv, and Jerusalem: How The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed Russian and Ukrainian Attitudes Toward Israel and Jews
Jan 15, 2024 By David Fishman | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Dr. David Fishman, expert on Ukrainian Jewry, discusses the complex connections between the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and how Russian and Ukrainian attitudes toward Israel and Jews have evolved as a result—both for better and for worse.
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When the Nile Gave Up Its Terrible Secret
Jan 12, 2024 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Va'era
Rabbinic commentators, in referring to an earlier exegete, sometimes say, “His interpretation requires its own interpretation.” All the more so it can be said that a midrashic interpretation sometimes needs its own midrashic interpretation, for in an effort to solve theological or textual difficulties, the midrash can present us with farfetched, even phantasmagoric, scenarios. Upon deeper reflection, however, we often discover that these phantasms are actually manifestations of profound truths. Let’s consider such a midrash, which both illuminates and is illuminated by a passage in this week’s Torah portion.
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Moshe the Mindful?
Jan 5, 2024 By Lilliana Shvartsmann | Commentary | Shemot
Moshe’s journey mirrors the struggles many face in navigating transitions and seeking purpose amidst uncertainty. The 19th-century Polish commentator Ha’emek Hadavar suggests Moshe intentionally led his flock to the most remote location, a place no other shepherd dared venture, seeking solitude. He needed such desolation to encounter God. While we don’t know if Moshe had his own meditation, journaling, or spiritual practices that promoted solitude, his courage and strength in recognizing the necessity of solitude are evident.
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Is it Heretical to Ask God for Protection?
Dec 29, 2023 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Vayehi
Jacob’s words of blessing to Joseph in chapter 48 surprise me every time that I read them. Though putatively an attempt to bless his son, they are primarily directed at his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and gain authority from Jacob’s fathers and from the shepherding and redeeming God he has known so intimately throughout his life.
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The Reason(s) Jacob Went Down to Egypt
Dec 22, 2023 By Ira Tokayer | Commentary | Vayiggash
Parashat Vayiggash is a good place to illustrate the modern scholarship, which sees the Torah’s Joseph story as a combination of three source documents with separate accounts of how and why Jacob descended to Egypt.
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A World in Crisis Needs a Yosef
Dec 15, 2023 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Miketz
Our society today faces crises of overwhelming proportions on many fronts—some observers have called our situation one of polycrisis, to emphasize how crises interact and amplify each other. Climate change is breathing down our necks, wars proliferate, and pandemics threaten our health, all while governments struggle to react sufficiently. Many who enjoy relative peace and affluence suffer from a sense of helplessness and foreboding. We need a Yosef.
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Rabbinic Webinar – Biblical & Rabbinic Perspectives on War
Dec 12, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond
Deuteronomy describes a protocol to be followed when Israel heads out to battle. We consider what that passage and its rabbinic interpretation tell us about the tensions between aspirations and realities and the needs of the individual and the community.
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Between the Lines: Professor Schiff’s Guilt
Dec 12, 2023 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Israeli author Agur Schiff discusses his novel Professor Schiff’s Guilt. In this gripping story, an Israeli professor travels to a fictitious West African nation to trace a slave-trading ancestor, only to be imprisoned under a new law barring successive generations from profiting off the proceeds of slavery. But before leaving Tel Aviv, the protagonist falls in love with Lucile, a mysterious African migrant worker who cleans his house. This satire of contemporary attitudes toward racism and colonialism examines economic inequality and the global refugee crisis, as well as the memory of transatlantic chattel slavery and the Holocaust.
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Civic Friendship in Times of Crisis and War: Jewish Thought, Political Theory, and the Story of Hanukkah
Dec 11, 2023 By Shira Billet | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Ancient philosophers described a political ideal of “civic friendship,” the idea that fellow citizens in a political community ought to pursue a certain kind of bond of friendship, in order to create flourishing societies steeped in a robust social fabric. Dr. Shira Billet explores the central role of notions of civic friendship in traditional Jewish sources. In light of current events in Israel, we will turn our attention to Jewish texts that relate to civic friendship in wartime and in times of crisis, with special connections drawn to the holiday of Hannukah.
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Tamar, Our Mother
Dec 8, 2023 By Yael Landman | Commentary | Vayeshev
Parashat Vayeshev begins the story of Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son. But just after this narrative kicks off, the text veers for the length of a chapter into the story of another of Jacob’s sons, Judah, as well as Judah’s three sons and his daughter-in-law Tamar. Just as the Joseph story is foundational for the broader narrative of B’nei Yisrael—the children of Jacob who become the Israelites—the story of Judah and Tamar is foundational as well.
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Paradigms of Friendship: What Philosophers and Rabbis Can Teach Us
Dec 4, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The Greek philosophers asserted that there are four types of friendship. This model, which was adopted by Maimonides, considered shared joint engagement in intellectual matters the highest form of friendship. Missing from this paradigm is the importance of certain character traits in creating and sustaining friendships. We consider the “four friendships” model and then take a mussar oriented approach to suggest alternative paradigms.
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Remember Dinah; Listen to Women
Dec 1, 2023 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Commentary | Vayishlah
Dinah’s story is often overlooked in a parashah rich with other narratives that are easier and more pleasant to explore. But this is not a time to shy away from difficult stories or avoid stories of sexual violence. Shabbat Vayishlah can be an opportunity for our communities to center the stories of women and girls in their fullness and explore the ways our communities can become communities of support.
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Caleb Brommer – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)
Nov 30, 2023 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Short Video | Vayishlah
Vayishlah All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons
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Sami Vingron – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)
Nov 28, 2023 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Vayetzei
Vayetzei All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons
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Friendship During Crisis: Learning from the Book of Job
Nov 27, 2023 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Job’s friends come to Job in the midst of his unspeakable losses and try to comfort him. We will learn from the Book of Job and explore the challenges of being a good friend when someone is suffering.
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