Pour Out Your Hearts

Oct 3, 2024 By Joel Seltzer | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

Hannah provides a powerful paradigm of prayer for us on these Days of Awe. Are we concerned with how we may appear when we are in prayer?

Is Modesty Still Relevant in the Twenty-First Century?

Sep 13, 2024 By Emmanuel Bloch | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

Modesty is hardly a popular concept among liberal-minded Jews, nor within the Western world in general. The reasons for this are multiple. Historically, modesty has been disproportionately applied to women, often as a means of controlling female behavior and sexuality. It is often associated with patriarchy, control, and the suppression of individual freedoms. Modesty is frequently perceived to be a negation of individuality, body positivity, and self-expression.

The King’s Torah and the Torah’s King

Sep 6, 2024 By Barry Holtz | Commentary | Shofetim

For me the most powerful and moving part of the description in Shofetim is the delineation of the limitations on the king. Sometime in the future, God says, you will be settled in Eretz Yisrael and you will want to set a king over yourselves to be like “all the other nations” (Deut. 17:14). With almost an exasperated acceptance, God tells them if that’s what you want, you can do it. But there are restrictions that need to be in place—you can’t choose someone who is not one of your own people; the king can’t keep many horses, nor can he have many wives.

Petition or Protest

Aug 30, 2024 By Adam Zagoria-Moffet | Commentary | Re'eh | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur

Our Sages saw Hannah as trying to trap God into offering blessing, and they interpreted the same from another unlikely context, one that also occurs during this month’s Torah readings. We read about the apparently bizarre mitzvah of shilu’ah haken, the sending away of the mother bird. Deut. 22:6–7 is the sole description of this shockingly precise mitzvah: “If you happen upon a bird’s nest while on the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, whether with chicks in it or still-unhatched eggs, and the mother bird is sitting on the eggs or chicks, you shall not take the mother with the young. Instead, chase away the mother bird and take the young—in order that you be well and your days long.”

The Afterlife of Our Actions

Aug 23, 2024 By Eliezer B. Diamond | 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)

Is Love Enough?

Aug 16, 2024 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

This context helps explain why both Shema paragraphs need to be included in our morning and evening prayers. The first paragraph opens with a confession of faith in the one God, and demands loving this one God with all our heart, soul, and might. It goes on to say that we are to keep the words God issued this day in our hearts and on our lips at all times, and we should teach them to our children. We are even told to “wear” these commandments on our arms and foreheads and to display them in public places. In all, the first paragraph of the Shema is very upbeat, with its focus on love of God and mitzvot.

The Rules of Rebuke

Aug 9, 2024 By Ariel Ya’akov Dunat | Commentary | Devarim

In Leviticus 19:17 we are commanded: “You shall not hate your fellow in your heart. Rebuke your fellow, but incur no guilt on their account.” Rashi teaches that when the Torah says “rebuke your fellow, but incur no guilt on their account,” we come to learn that in giving rebuke, we need to be considerate of how we do it. Location, audience, and method all matter. Rebuking someone publicly may cause embarrassment. Our tone or our choice of words can also belittle them, even if unintentionally. When giving rebuke, we must keep the recipient’s dignity in mind. In Parashat Devarim, Moses expands this principle of dignity further.

“What’s God?”—and Other Questions Kids Ask

Aug 2, 2024 By Chaim Galfand | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

This week’s double Torah reading specifies 42 locations where the Israelites camped between leaving Egypt and entering Canaan. While the list could be seen as pro forma, a beloved teacher of mine—Dr. Eliezer Slomovic—always insisted that God is not a blabbermouth; everything in Torah is imbued with meaning, even a list of 42 place names. Toward the end of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a supercomputer famously reveals the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything to be the number 42. The numerical parallel to the 42 Israelite encampments provides a serendipitous opening to consider how the seemingly mundane might be the gateway to a wider awareness of something greater than ourselves.