JTS Torah Commentary

Freedom And Responsibility

Mar 26, 2015 By Rachel Rosenthal | Short Video | Pesah

Into The Wilderness

Mar 26, 2015 By Alisa Braun | Short Video | Pesah

A Dialogue of Life: Toward the Encounter of Jews and Christians

Mar 26, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

This event was cosponsored by The Library and the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

Defeating DOMA: The Changing Nature of Equality Under the US Constitution

Mar 18, 2015

Roberta Kaplan, Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, who successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court the landmark U.S. V. Windsor marriage equality case, which struck down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), explores this groundbreaking ruling. Dozens of courts have relied explicitly on this case to accord gay couples equal rights under the law.

Crackers for God

Mar 16, 2015 By William Friedman | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Vayikra | Pesah

What kind of gift would you give a king? In the interests of both respect and self-preservation, probably the nicest thing you could afford! And if you’d give this to a human king, how much more would you give to the King of Kings of Kings? And yet the Torah prescribes that any grain offered in the Temple cannot contain either yeast or honey. That’s right: the only appropriate grain offering for God is matzah—the tasteless cracker that is about to become the source of so much complaining on Passover! Why would the Torah tell us to do such a thing?

The Artist’s Insight

Mar 13, 2015 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

From October of last year until mid-February, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in collaboration with Tate Modern in London, featured a comprehensive exhibition entitled Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs. It was a reassessment of Matisse’s colored paper cut-outs, which, according to the program notes, “reflect…a renewed commitment to form and color, and . . . inventiveness”. Matisse himself said, “For me, a colour is a force. My pictures are made up of four or five colours that collide with one another, and the collision gives a sense of energy.” (Sooke, Henri Matisse: A Second Life, pp. 97-98.)

Nediv Lev

Mar 13, 2015 By Michael R. Boino | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

We often think of love as something comfortable, something comforting. The truth is, it can be the exact opposite. True, unbounded love from another source can cause us to confront parts of ourselves with which we are uncomfortable: our vulnerability, our self image, our passive role as the recipient of care rather than as a caregiver.

Shattered Tablets

Mar 6, 2015 By Daniel Heschel Silberbusch | Commentary | Ki Tissa

What fascinates me about this moment in the Torah (Ex. 32:15-19) is what we forget because we too well remember how the story ends.

Still Life with Siddur: Blessings and Challenges in Jewish Communal Prayer

Mar 2, 2015 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

What is the role of communal prayer in a culture that values individual expression and customized experience? Two leading voices in Jewish prayer explore the rationale, advantages and challenges of praying together.

Written on the Heart

Feb 27, 2015 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Shabbat Zakhor | Tetzavveh

The mitzvot are a path of spiritual practice, a cultivation of religious awareness that may open us to the mystery and urgency of the divine voice. Not only legal obligation, mitzvah is a moment of encounter with the ever-renewing Divine Presence as it reverberates through the generations of the Jewish people.

Amalek

Feb 27, 2015 By Jan Uhrbach | Commentary | Shabbat Zakhor | Purim

The Shabbat prior to Purim, known as Shabbat Zakhor, takes its name from the first word of the special maftir (additional Torah reading) for the day, which retells the story of the first post-enslavement attack against the newly freed Israelites:

Remember (zakhor) what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt . . . You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

Deepening Relationships On Purim

Feb 26, 2015 By Amichai Lau-Lavie | Short Video | Purim

From Choice To Privilege

Feb 26, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Short Video | Purim

A Tale Of Two Queens

Feb 26, 2015 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Short Video | Purim

Gold and Incense: For Better and for Worse

Feb 20, 2015 By Stephen A. Geller | Commentary | Terumah

Parashat Terumah begins the long section of the Book of Exodus that deals with the Tabernacle, its furniture and vessels, and the garments of the high priest. The only interruption in this mass of cultic detail is the narrative of the sin of worshipping the Golden Calf and its aftermath in Exodus 32–34. The ritual details continue into Vayikra with the list of sacrifices in the cult. The climax of the entire cultic section is Leviticus 9 and 10, where the Tabernacle is dedicated with elaborate rites.

The Construction of the Tabernacle From the Hebrew Republic (1700)

Feb 20, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Terumah

The Hebrew Republic (De Republica Hebraeorum in the original Latin) was written in the aftermath of Dutch independence from Spain. Petrus Cunaeus principally drew from biblical and Talmudic sources and from Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah in order to reconstruct (or, in reality, construct) the development, structure, and challenges of an ancient Hebrew republic, with the intention of providing a model for the emerging Dutch republic that was both religious and practical.

Leadership in the Bible: A Practical Guide for Today

Feb 19, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

How would Abraham, Joseph, and Moses respond to the 40 most difficult situations you encounter in daily life?

I Can’t Stand My Neighbor, but His Ox Needs a Hand

Feb 13, 2015 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Mishpatim

A rabbi and an astronomer have the middle and window seats on a long-haul flight while the fellow on the aisle is a champion sleeper. As neither of our sophisticated travelers is taking a stroll anytime soon, the astronomer begins to talk: “Tell me, rabbi. What, essentially, is Judaism for?” The rabbi thinks a bit, casting about for a reasonable response. He offers a few broad strokes and believes he’s done about as well as might be expected. The traveler responds, “All these rules and teachings and traditions, rabbi! Can’t it all be boiled down to ‘Be Nice?’” The rabbi nods and says, “All these galaxies and black holes and neutrinos and supernovas . . . professor, can’t it all be boiled down to ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star?’”

Law and Justice

Feb 13, 2015 By Martin Oppenheimer | Commentary | Mishpatim

As an attorney, I am fascinated by the code of civil and criminal law contained in Mishpatim. In Egypt, law was made by the Pharoah, who could unilaterally decide the fate of his subjects. All lives and property were forfeit at his whim—as his subjects learned during the course of the plagues, and when the Egyptian army was decimated at the Red Sea. Conversely, Mosaic law focuses on equality and social justice. The poor, the downtrodden, the stranger—even the man whose destitution forced him to sell himself into slavery—were required to be treated with dignity under the law.

The Bite of Desire

Feb 6, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Yitro

Do you covet? I do, and it makes me sad. Perhaps I’m too hard on myself. We all see things that we want, don’t have, and wish we did. There is too much in the world that is bright and shiny—offering pleasure and excitement—not to see it and feel the ache of its absence in my life. And I speak not only of the ephemeral delights that beckon. Even more difficult to contemplate are my fellow human beings whose personal and professional lives leave me despondent when measuring myself against them: scholars who have written books that I haven’t, friends who seem to be better spouses or more successful parents, people who have paid off their mortgages, men who still have all their hair. In short, the list is endless.