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Pesah: The Chesed Holiday
Apr 8, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol
Next week marks the beginning of Passover; with this annual celebration, Jews gather to celebrate the birth of the Israelite nation.
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The Meaning of Pesah
Apr 8, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pesah
Next week marks the beginning of Passover; with this annual celebration, Jews gather to celebrate the birth of the Israelite nation.
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A House of Prayer for All Peoples
Apr 1, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayikra | Pesah
Creative tension is ever present in the poles found within Judaism. We are drawn to the balance between keva and kavannah, that which is fixed and that which is spontaneous; Hassidim fervently debate the Mitnagdim over the line between spirituality and intellectualism; and we are constantly in search of the golden mean between halakhah (law) and aggadah (lore). Another pair of opposites embedded within Judaism is the constant tension between particularity and universality. To what extent should a Jew be zealous in the particular observance of Jewish identity? Or is Torah better understood as a Jewish lens into universal experience?
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The Inspirational History of Rosh Hashanah
Oct 5, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
If sanctity be measured by synagogue attendance, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur win hands down.
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The Language of the Jewish People
Sep 24, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo
The owner of the mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse we rented for August has a well-tended orchard of diverse fruit trees.
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Vanquishment Through the Written Word
Sep 3, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Re'eh
For a book that purports to be but a reprise of the other books of the Torah, Deuteronomy abounds with puzzling discrepancies.
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“Dear Mr. Prime Minister…”
May 28, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Behukkotai
This past Sunday, New York Jewry greeted the Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, at a Leadership Assembly at Baruch College sponsored by UJA-Federation of New York, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and United Jewish Communities.
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Claiming Our Spiritual Freedom
May 14, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor
The laws of the Torah are rooted in the exodus from Egypt.
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The Truth about the Exodus
Apr 30, 2005 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Pesah
This past December, I went with my wife and two adult children on a family vacation to Egypt.
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Pesah: The Great Redemption
Apr 23, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Shabbat Hagadol
The Shabbat just prior to Passover is known as the Great Sabbath, Shabbat HaGadol.
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Elijah the Prophet
Apr 23, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol
The Shabbat just prior to Passover is known as the Great Sabbath, Shabbat ha–Gadol. It is not one of the four special Sabbaths that span the month of Adar to herald the coming of Passover (Shekalim, Zakhor, Parah and ha–Hodesh).
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The Theology of the Jewish Calendar
Apr 9, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Pesah
With Shabbat ha-Hodesh, we are just two weeks away from the first seder. Passover does not usually fall this late in April. A leap year accounts for its delay. In the Jewish calendar, unlike the secular one, a leap year consists of adding an extra month, and there are seven such leap years within every cycle of nineteen years. The month that is doubled is Adar, the last month of the year, the one in which we celebrate Purim. Hence, in a leap year, Purim comes in the second Adar (adar sheni) and Passover, thirty one-days later.
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Lacking Praise
Sep 16, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Hallel, the compilation of psalms recited on Jewish festivals and observances throughout the year, is the quintessential expression of joy.
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Sharing Our Blessings
May 8, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor
Traditional rabbinic thought argues that words of Torah are never superfluous. There is a distinct economy in the way that words are employed. And so, when we encounter repetition, Torah is coming to teach us something unique. The challenge for us, as readers, is to understand the import of repetition. Parashat Emor offers us one such opportunity. Although the law of pe’ah, leaving one corner of the field to the poor, is legislated a few chapters earlier in Parashat K’doshim (Leviticus 19:9), it is placed this week in a list of festivals. What is the significance of restating such law in the midst of our parashah?
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Passover in the Light of Yom Kippur
May 1, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim | Pesah | Yom Kippur
If the first half of this week’s double parasha reminds you of Yom Kippur, despite our proximity to Passover, you are not in error. The two Torah readings for that solemn day are both drawn from Aharei Mot. Chapter 16, which we read at Shaharit on Yom Kippur morning, depicts the annual ceremony on the tenth day of the seventh month for cleansing the tabernacle of its impurities and the people of their sins. The English word “scapegoat” preserves a verbal relic of the day’s most memorable feature – the goat destined to carry off symbolically the collective guilt of the nation into the wilderness. Chapter 18, reserved for Minhah in the afternoon, defines the sexual practices which were to govern the domestic life of Israelite society.
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Bringing the Messianic Redeption
Apr 3, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
The most distinctive feature of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath just before Passover, is that it called for a sermon. For in the pre-emancipation synagogue, the rabbi customarily spoke but twice a year: on the Shabbat prior to Passover and on the Shabbat between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah. These sermons tended to be halakhic in character, reminding congregants of the elaborate and proper observance of the holy day to come.
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Labor & Leisure
Jan 31, 2004 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Bo
The eve of the Exodus, as described in Parashat Bo and as we relive it in the Passover seder, reflect a peculiar admixture of labor and leisure. On the one hand, as the Mishnah (Pesahim 10:1) teaches, on the seder night, “even the poorest in Israel should not eat until he reclines.” (In this context, reclining is the classic sign of leisure.) At the same time, we eat matzah, the bread of poverty and affliction. In ancient times having more than one “tavlin” (dipping sauce), was a sign of luxury, and yet even as we dip twice, one of the things that we dip is bitter herb, and one of the sauces is salt water. This contradiction has its beginnings in this week’s parashah, Bo, which describes the Paschal sacrifice (the true first seder) and carries through to a central paradox in modern life.
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A Universal New Year
Sep 27, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
Living in a universe at least thirteen billion years old, we view with mild disclaim an ancient rabbinic dispute over the exact month in which God created it. Not long after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, two of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai’s renowned disciples expressed opposing views. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus insisted that God had created the world in the month of Tishrei, while Rabbi Yekoshua ben Hananyah contended that the event occurred in Nisan. Both rejected the Geek view that the cosmos might be eternal and uncreated. For the Torah and rabbinic Judaism, the ultimate reassurance of God’s existence is the miracle of creation, the mother of all miracles (BT Rosh Hashanah 106-11a).
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Turkey’s Kosher Journey
Aug 23, 2003 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Re'eh
This week’s Parashah, Re’eh, contains a wonderful juxtaposition of mitzvot, which, when taken together, provide an insight into how Jews deal with novel situations and the disagreements that arise from them, and also allows me to share a peculiarity of my own family history. One of the commandments which the Jewish people have found most difficult to follow in practice is found in Deuteronomy 14:1: “lo titgodedu.” The plain sense of the verse is “You should not gash yourselves… because of the dead.” One must avoid pagan mourning customs that include self-mutilation. The rabbinic interpretation of the verse, however, is that Jews should not form themselves into multiple subgroups “agudot agudot” (B. Yevamot 13b) each following a different understanding of the law. Therefore, there should not be two Jewish courts in one city, one permitting a particular practice, the other forbidding it.
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Rabbi Akiva’s Adult Bar-Mitzvah
Jun 21, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
One of the most compelling new rituals in the Conservative synagogue is the adult bat–mitzvah. The impulse is egalitarian, the result religious empowerment. The women who participate enjoyed no bat–mitzvah ceremony in their youth. Years later they seek to fill the void. Usually in small groups of up to a dozen, they study with their rabbi and cantor for a period of at least two years. The practice is so widespread today that the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism has produced a carefully articulated curriculum to enhance the meaningfulness of the experience. Learning to read Hebrew is required. Biblically based yet religiously encompassing, the study period culminates in the preparation of a specific parashah and haftarah to be chanted in the synagogue on a Shabbat morning. There is definitely comfort in numbers. Doing the bat–mitzvah as a group lessens the tension of performing in public. Each participant must master only a part of the whole.
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