JTS Torah Commentary

Speaking God, Speaking Humanity

Sep 4, 2015 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Ki Tavo

What makes the Jews God’s people? On Yom Kippur, when we sing Ki anu amekha ve’atah Elohenu (For we are Your people and You are our God), what are we talking about? Is this triumphalism, elitism, exclusivity? Or could it be an ethic of communal, legislated kindness?

Back to the Future

Sep 4, 2015 By JTS Alumni | Commentary | Ki Tavo

By Dr. Jacqueline Gerber Lebwhol (GS ’17)

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (trans. Gregory Rabassa)

My college modern literature professor often began class with a communal recitation of this sentence, and many readers consider it among the best first lines of any modern work. What makes this rather strange sentence so powerful?

God Wants Us Back

Aug 31, 2015 By Joel Alter | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Exercise Trackers And Mitzvah Motivators

Aug 31, 2015 By Judith Hauptman | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

This Time Could Be Different

Aug 31, 2015 By Mychal Springer | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

We Do Matter

Aug 31, 2015 By David Hoffman | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Soul Surgery

Aug 31, 2015 By Lauren Henderson | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Naming Our Sins

Aug 31, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Short Video | Yom Kippur

Conquering Our Anger

Aug 31, 2015 By Julia Andelman | Short Video | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

From Judging To Learning

Aug 31, 2015 By Rachel Bovitz | Short Video | Yom Kippur

Why Is Yom Kippur Every Year?

Aug 31, 2015 By Burton L. Visotzky | Short Video | Yom Kippur

Family Matters

Aug 28, 2015 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

Academic talmudists are often asked, “Of what use are the findings of academic Jewish Studies to lay people? Can historical research inform our contemporary dialogue on the pressing issues of our day?” I propose that developments in family law from biblical to Rabbinic times have much to teach us in our evaluating the rapidly changing values and their accompanying changing laws in our own times.

After They’ve Seen Paree

Aug 28, 2015 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

We are painfully aware that wars don’t end once the dust settles on the battlefield and documents of peace are signed, but rather that the “war at home” lives on long past military engagements, both in the homecoming of individual soldiers and the broad social changes that often follow. Ki Tetzei begins where the previous portion left off, discussing laws of war; however, in its second paragraph, it sharply turns to address issues of moral behavior in areas including family, agriculture, and sexual relations.

Judging the Individual, Guiding the Community

Aug 21, 2015 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Shofetim

The 2016 US presidential election primary season has begun with over two dozen potential candidates competing for our support. Keeping track of their positions on the issues feels impossible, but watching them as they present themselves to the American public helps sharpen our thinking, not only about the individual candidates, but also about the leadership qualities we both esteem and eschew in our elected officials.

The Purpose of Ritual

Aug 21, 2015 By Richard Kalmin | Commentary | Shofetim

Deuteronomy 21:1-9 describes the ritual performed when a murder victim is discovered in the open field and the perpetrator is unknown. The elders of the city closest to the body ask God to absolve Israel from bloodguilt by accepting, in place of the murderer, a heifer killed as expiation for the crime. This ritual serves as the backdrop of the Tosefta’s chilling story about the Temple in Jerusalem.

Serving God

Aug 14, 2015 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Re'eh

Demonstrating uncompromising devotion to God is the theme of this week’s parashah. Such devotion is expressed through belief, but more importantly, through avodah, meaningful service to God. For the biblical Israelite, service to God meant loyalty to God’s commandments and participation in the sacrificial cult. In Deuteronomy, avodah referred specifically to offering sacrifices to God at a central place of worship: “look only to the site that the Lord your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go, and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices. . .” (Deut. 12:5-6).

Seeing Inequity

Aug 14, 2015 By Stephanie Ruskay | Commentary | Re'eh

So many people of color and their houses of worship have been destroyed this year because we haven’t rooted out systemic racism and oppression; because, like the weather, we talk about it, but most of us don’t do enough.

The Afterlife of Our Actions

Aug 7, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Eikev

Will Israel receive all the rain it needs this coming year? It depends on whether we are faithful to God’s word. At least that is the claim made in a biblical passage that we recite twice a day as part of the Shema:

If, then, you obey the commandments that I have enjoined upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. . .Take care not to be lured way and serve other gods and bow to them. For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain. . . (Deut. 11:13-14, 16-17, NJPS translation)

Many of us are uncomfortable reciting these verses.

Snacking and Satiation

Aug 7, 2015 By Shira D. Epstein | Commentary | Eikev

Moses relays to the People of Israel that when they eat and are “satisfied,” they should bless God for the land that was given to them (Deut. 8:10). This passage from Parashat Eikev, incorporated into the Birkat Hamazon (Grace after Meals), tethers the sensation of fullness and abundance to the act of offering gratitude for the source of our food. In this modern era of overly-processed packaged goods and “in-between snacking,” how many of us are actually tuned into the moment when we experience satiation, or take the time to consider the original source of what we ingest? We crunch on cookies in between errands, slurp sodas at our desks, and leave a trail of crumbs behind us as we hurry to catch a bus. 

Did Moses Die for Us?

Jul 31, 2015 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

What a magnificent and rich Torah reading we have this week, Parashat Va’et-hannan! It’s as if the Torah wants to compensate the Jewish community for the week gone by, a week during which we commemorated Tishah Be’av, the putative anniversary of so many devastating events that have occurred throughout Jewish history. This week’s “reward” is a reading that incorporates a restatement of the Ten Commandments (Deut. 5:6-17) followed almost immediately by the first paragraph of the Shema (6:4-9).