9/11 in Perspective
Sep 16, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yom Kippur
Last year’s assault on America struck less than a week before Rosh Hashanah. With the embers still burning and the air laden with smoke and the taste of ashes in our mouths, we could hardly bring ourselves to wish each other a sweet new year. Suddenly, the shehecheyanu thanksgiving with which we greet each holiday rang with a frightening literalness. Our state of shock was too acute for comforting, like that of a mourner before the funeral.
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On Radical Amazement
Sep 6, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
Great theology is the reflective end result of religious experience. If we can identify the underlying experience, it will be easier for us to fathom the abstraction. This has been for me, at least, the key to penetrating a well-known Talmudic statement that has captivated me all summer. Familiarity often obscures meaning. I share the comment of R. Yohanan with you in the hope that it will enrich your High Holy Day season.
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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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The Poetry and Theology of Tishah Be’av
Jul 24, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
On the Shabbat prior to the fast of Tishah b’Av, the synagogue reverberates to the opening chapters of Deuteronomy. The name of the book and of the parashah, Devarim – Words – emphasizes the key Jewish response to calamity. Historically, Jews rebuild their shattered worlds with words of high emotion and daring imagination. Like God at the dawn of creation, we bring order out of chaos through words. The instrument has nothing to do with the magic of incantations. It mirrors the fundamental human condition. The worlds we inhabit are a construct of our minds.
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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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In Memory of Zvia Ben-Yosseph Ginor
Jun 26, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Hukkat
Great art is often a triumph over great suffering. In 1999, The Jewish Theological Seminary faculty suffered the grievous loss of one of its own, Zvia Ben-Yosseph Ginor, to cancer at the height of her literary power. With her keen intellect and exuberant personality, she cut a figure larger than life. Zvia had come to JTS in mid-life with impressive credentials, to pursue a doctorate in Jewish literature. She was the daughter of the founder of Israel’s airplane industry, a published Hebrew poet and a sterling adult educator. For her dissertation, she wrote on the Hebrew poetry of Abba Kovner, the legendary Vilna partisan and creator of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. Shortly after completion, the work was published in Israel.
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Reverence for Contradictory Texts
Feb 5, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Mishpatim | Shabbat Shekalim
Sometimes the smallest of words contains the largest of meanings.
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The Power to Serve
Jan 29, 2005 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro
Judaism is an elaborate way of relating to God as the source of existence and the provider of ultimate meaning.
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