The Pursuit of Peace
Jul 2, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas | Sukkot
Experience often has a way of eroding our ideals. While the evidence for this sad fact abounds, I wish to illustrate it anew in the exegetical fate of a passage in this week’s parasha. The parasha concludes with a succinct statement of the sacrifices to be offered in the Tabernacle throughout the year.
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Entering the Covenant
Jul 3, 1999 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas
This past Shabbat the Schorsch family celebrated the bris of their seventh grandchild. The previous Shabbat, our younger daughter had given birth to her second child. Once again we made use of the small, faded blue velvet kippah, hand sewn and embossed with my Hebrew name by my father’s artist friend in Germany, Fanny Dessau. As it covered my head at my bris, it has now graced the bris of our son and that of three out of four of our grandsons. To me, it is not just a treasured artifact of family pride, but also a symbol of just how valuable is the transmission of consciousness and culture from one generation to the next.
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Between Zealotry and Peace
Jul 22, 2000 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Pinehas
This week, we read the first of three “haftarot of rebuke” which precede Tisha B’av. Even though this Haftorah is ordinarily associated with Mattot, Mattot is read as the first half of a double–portion this year. We read this haftorah a week “early” to be sure we don’t miss it.
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Linguistic Fossils
Jul 14, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas
Fossils come in different forms. Those buried in the earth have vastly expanded our conception of time and the evolution of life. Those imbedded in the language we speak are closer to our daily experience and barely noticed. Despite the change in world view, these linguistic fossils persist because they are concrete, vivid and emotionally satisfying. Thus a current TV sitcom about a happily married minister with seven children can sport the name Seventh Heaven, though no one holds any longer the medieval notion that the earth sits at the center of a cosmos surrounded by seven firmaments. Two other examples of idioms that have outlasted their origins: “To placate the gods” we would be ready to go to “the ends of the earth.”
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Good in the Face of Evil
Sep 27, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Pinehas | Yom Kippur
Recent events infuse words long cherished with unexpected meaning. In the days of the Temple, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies but once a year on Yom Kippur. As the repository for the Torah, it precluded easy access.
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The Sensitivity to Lead
Jul 10, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas
From the paean of Balaam, we plummet to the apostasy at Shittim. The inconstancy of the real world quickly obscures the glimpse of perfection. The daughters of Moab, a tribe born of incest (Genesis 19:30-38), literally seduces the men of Israel into an orgy of idolatry. Enraged, God orders Moses to slay all those who have worshipped at the shrine of Baal-peor. But before Moses can mobilize his leadership, an Israelite male comes out of nowhere to fuel the rebellion by publicly taking a Medianite consort into a marriage chamber. In a burst of zeal, Pinhas, a young priest and Aaron’s grandson, runs them both through with a single thrust of his spear. The vigilante execution ends the plague that had already taken some 24,000 victims.
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Exposing Narrative Fissures
Jul 15, 2006 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Pinehas
As a guest columnist for the New York Times this past Friday, Judith Warner shared that her nine–year–old daughter “was terrified of narrative tension — cliffhanger pauses, unanswered questions, any sense of foreboding or even strong anticipation.”
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The Torah’s Middle Path
Jul 11, 2009 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Pinehas
Is there ever a discernible gap between God’s morality and the Torah, or is the Torah itself our only window into the realm of divine values? Put another way, is it permissible for a reverent Jew to challenge the morality of a law, and to base this challenge on his or her own understanding of justice and thus God’s will?
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