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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The Dangers of Religious Surrogacy
Jun 14, 2003 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Naso
This week’s parashah, Naso, includes one of Judaism’s most time–honored liturgical texts, the priestly blessing.
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Between Brothers and Neighbors
May 17, 2003 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Behar
Chapter 25 of Vayikra, which makes up the bulk of Parashat Be–har, deals with essential laws of economic justice in an agrarian society. No member of the Jewish people may be relegated to lifelong slavery or landless serfdom. Ancestral plots are not to be sold out of the family forever, but rather returned in the Jubilee year. Even though slavery is permitted, a Jewish slave must go free in the seventh year. One may not cheat another in selling or buying, nor earn a profit at the expense of one in need by charging him interest. And yet, there are troubling limits to the scope of this ethical tradition.
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Why We Eat Dairy on Shavu’ot
Jun 7, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shavuot
The menu for the first day of Shavuot is customarily restricted to dairy dishes. While a plethora of explanations has been generated to account for the practice, I prefer the most serious one. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the governing covenant between God and Israel, the constitution of the Jewish polity. The event marks the adoption of a religious regimen that would henceforth define the borders of individual and group behavior. That to which the Israelites were formerly entitled is no longer permitted.
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From Gleaning to Tzedakah
May 10, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor
Words often conceal the origins of the idea they denote. Etymology and meaning diverge and thus confound. A good example relates to a halakhic fragment in this week’s parasha. I refer to the verb “to glean.” The word denotes minimal gain through hard work. Basically an agricultural term, it conjures up an image of beggars at harvest time gathering whatever remains in the field after reaping. From there the meaning expands to any activity, physical or mental, that involves collecting painstakingly individual items of the same order from disparate quarters.
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A Vision of Religious Leadership
Mar 29, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemini
After a profusion of dietary regulations, our parasha reemphasizes the fundamental purpose of Judaism: “For I the Lord am your God: you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy” (11:44). A pervasive sense of holiness is the key to this-worldly salvation. To live wisely requires self-control. There is no creation without contraction. To spring we first need to coil. The regimen of Judaism is to help us keep the big picture in sight, make wholesome distinctions and prevent the numbing of our spiritual sensibility. Transgressions erode our inner life, while doing mitzvot brings an infusion of holiness. In the words of the Rabbis: “If we embark on hallowing our lives on earth, we will be hallowed abundantly from above” (BT Yoma 39a).
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Keeping “The Fires of Israel” Lit
Mar 22, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tzav
In a session not long ago with Seminary students on religious services, I was asked about the restoration of a phrase from the siddur that the Conservative movement had dropped as early as the 1940’s.
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Hearing God in the Silence
Mar 15, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayikra
I never heard my parents address each other by their first names. They showed their mutual affection, which remained palpable till late in their lives, by using pet names. My father called my mother “Mutti” (from the German word for mother – Mutter) and my mother always called him “Schatzi” (from the German word for treasure – Schatz). As my father aged, he developed the habit of saying “Mutti” to himself audibly and often, without ever intending to attract her attention. Alone in his study, he would emit the sound of her name when he rose from his desk to get another book or just reclined to rest for a moment. She was clearly the anchor of his life.
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