JTS Torah Commentary

Humanity: Both Glory and Shame

Apr 9, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Metzora

Rabbi Morris Shapiro (z”l) spent his last years teaching in the JTS beit midrash. He was a Holocaust survivor and arguably one of the best talmudic minds of his generation, and we who had the privilege of learning with him here knew well that one of his most frequently cited teachings was the phrase this midrash brings to mind: know before Whom you stand.

Between Tum’ah and Tohorah

Apr 2, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Shabbat Hahodesh | Tazria

It seems more than kismet that Passover falls when it does, following on the heels of the parashiyot of Leviticus in which we discuss the most base of subjects. In fact, rabbis and commentators through the ages have found the laws of tum’ah and tohorah (ritual impurity and purity) covered in these weeks before Passover so unsettling that, presumably in reaction, they have enthusiastically embraced the following statement from the Talmud: “Questions are asked and lectures are given on the laws of Passover beginning thirty days before” (BT Pesachim 6a). Surely, this is an avoidance tactic on the part of rabbis, but maybe it is also for the sake of the community—to save them from many discussions that would make them lose their appetites for the kiddush that follows services.

Birth, Both Spiritual and Physical

Apr 2, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tazria

How can men understand something like pregnancy, which is so fundamentally foreign to the male experience? As contemporary Jews, we often raise questions about how our classical sources, compiled by men, portray “the other,” in this case, child-bearing women. We find in the midrash above an ancient rabbi’s attempt to understand childbirth, the opening subject of this week’s Torah portion, and identify men’s role in it.

Parashat Shemini’s Lessons of Leadership

Mar 26, 2011 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Shemini

Parashat Shemini provides a stark example of celebration suddenly transformed into mourning. Having completed the building of the Tabernacle and set the foundation for divinely ordained sacrifices, the Israelites are ready to offer the first sacrifice celebrating the inauguration of Israel’s priesthood. The celebration, however, is tragically interrupted by the deaths of Aaron’s eldest sons, Nadav and Avihu. What makes their ending even more shocking is that their downfall comes while they are performing their priestly deeds. How are we to understand this fateful episode, and what does this tragic mishap teach us about leadership?

Silence Speaks Volumes

Mar 26, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Shemini

We’ve all been on both sides of this story. Sometimes we find ourselves as the one in mourning or going through a particularly hard time, having to put up with the well-intentioned words of friends and acquaintances that inadvertently rub salt in our wounds; and at other times, we find ourselves trying to offer words of comfort, and speaking banalities that—even as they come out of our mouths—we realize are of no help.

Choosing the Right Outfit

Mar 19, 2011 By Michelle Lynn-Sachs | Commentary | Tzav

The parashah contains a variety of detailed instructions to the Israelite priests regarding how they are to perform the sacrificial rites. Included in these instructions are detailed descriptions of what they are to wear as they go about their duties. Significant mention of clothing occurs twice in the parashah: once at the beginning, as part of the instructions for what to do with the ashes resulting from a sacrifice, and once at the end, in a description of the public ceremony to invest Aaron and his sons as priests.

Different Kinds of Teshuvah

Mar 19, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tzav

What does “a broken spirit,” let alone the return of animal sacrifice, have to do with preparing for Purim, the wildest holiday in our tradition?

Finding Inspiration in Bullocks and Bloodstains

Mar 12, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Vayikra

Reading Leviticus, it is clear that the reality of the people who generated the text is radically different from our own. It is a book that reads as ancient, obsolete, and irrelevant. In fact, one recent popular edition of the Bible left it out altogether. So what are we, regular readers of the Torah text and seekers of higher meaning gleaned from it, to do with the next three months of Levitical parashiyot?

Strengthening Ourselves

Mar 5, 2011 By David Marcus | Commentary | Pekudei | Shabbat Shekalim

This Shabbat is one of beginnings and endings. It is a Shabbat of beginnings because it is the first of the four special Shabbatot preceding Pesah, and it is called Shabbat Shekalim. But this Shabbat is also a Shabbat of endings. The parashah for the week, Parashat Pekudei, describes the concluding stages of the construction of the Mishkan by the craftsman Bezalel and the entire band of Israelite workers. 

Who Do You Trust?

Mar 5, 2011

While I always read the Torah and its rabbinic interpretations in search of contemporary relevance, I rarely find texts that seem to mirror my own life history so closely. The two parts of the midrash above reflect in many ways the lessons I have learned from my father’s first and second careers: as a litigator for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and then as a personal financial planner. His work experiences have taught me a great deal about what it means to be “trustworthy” as opposed to “hurrying to get rich.”

GenNext: Religious Leadership 40 and Under

Feb 28, 2011

In this program, Haroon Moghul, a Muslim PhD student at Columbia University, and Rabbi Melissa Weintraub, the cofounder and North American director of the Encounter Programs, discuss religious leadership.

The Religious Significance of Our Relationships

Feb 26, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Vayak-hel

Among the many methods of explicating verses and devising halakhah, the Rabbis list s’michut parashiyot (connection of phrases). The essential idea is that proximity of biblical verses suggests a correlation of their greater subject matters. Or, in our common parlance: “Location, location, location.” This week, we have an example that illustrates the method.

A Job Well Done

Feb 26, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Vayak-hel

Who gets the credit for a job well done? The work of the Tabernacle was not a solo endeavor; indeed Exodus 31:6 tells us that Oholiab ben Ahisamach and “all who are skillful” were enlisted for the undertaking. The rabbis’ populist bent seeps through the midrash here and elsewhere as the work of the Tabernacle is discussed.

The Arab Spring and Ancient Israel

Feb 19, 2011 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Ki Tissa

What an amazing juxtaposition! The (near) miraculous events in Egypt that we witnessed on news broadcasts over the past week coincide with Parashat Ki Tissa, the Torah reading for this Shabbat. The circumstances of the two are wildly different, yet the fundamental human concerns in each setting overlap to an extraordinary degree.

Marketing Judaism

Feb 19, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Ki Tissa

If the Torah you teach isn’t sexy, don’t teach it. An unassailable marketing message rooted in a play on words: “had finished” is kekaloto, which─especially written as it is, missing the letter vav toward the end─could be rendered instead “as his bride.”

Leading with Absence

Feb 12, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Tetzavveh

With the first words of our parashah, we see the shadow, but not the body, of a man.

“V’ata tetzavvah et b’nai yisrael” (Exod. 27:20): “And you shall instruct the children of Israel” in the production of oil for the menorah to be used in the Tabernacle.

Only two verses later we read:

“V’ata hakrev eilekha et aharon ahiekha v’et banav eto” (28:1): “And you shall bring forward Aaron your brother and his sons . . . to serve Me [God] as priests.”

What Our Clothes Can Do For Us

Feb 12, 2011 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Text Study | Tetzavveh

I recall first grasping the wise adage that “the clothes make the man” in a dressing room at the Kennedy Center between acts of the Washington Opera’s production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride. After performing as a peasant child in the chorus, I needed to change quickly into the opulent regal attire for my other role as Tsareyvitch — the tsar’s son. Exchanging my drab brown clothing for a multicolored outfit of silk, sequins, and rhinestones completely shifted my sense of self and purpose.

Our Gifts to the World

Feb 5, 2011 By David G. Roskies | Commentary | Terumah

Most visibly, most palpably, this portable structure is what set the Israelites apart from the nations, that bodied forth their difference, their chosenness. It is by carrying out God’s design with such zeal, artistry, and precision, with such an outpouring of gifts, of terumah, that this ragtag of former slaves turned itself into a nation of priests.

Textual Transmission

Feb 5, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Terumah

In what font does the Torah need to be written?

A glance inside a Torah scroll reveals that the font is indeed different than what is printed in standard siddurim and other Hebrew texts. It is clearly a beautiful and highly stylized calligraphy, but as this midrash makes clear it is also part of the tradition handed down from generation to generation.

The Routine and the Profound

Jan 29, 2011 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Mishpatim

If Parashat Yitro, last week’s Torah reading, ends with the literal clap of God’s thunder, Parashat Mishpatim begins, perhaps not with a whimper, but certainly with at least a touch of anticlimax. From the heights of Yitro’s mystery, from the Decalogue and the Revelation, we are brought quite precipitously to the nitty-gritty of daily life, the laws of slave and slaveholder, the details of petty feuds, of accidental death and injury, of the goring ox, the fires in the vineyard, and the thief in the night.