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?
Read More
The Sin of Moses
Jul 4, 2009 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat
Everyone knows how Romeo and Juliet ends, and yet we still cry when they die. The same is true of the first of the two Torah portions we read this week, Parashat Hukkat/Balak. In this portion, we learn that Moses will not enter the Promised Land. We have heard or read this story every year, and yet we are still upset, still angry that, on the threshold, Moses is denied admission to the Land to which he has been leading the Israelites for forty years.
Read More
Seeing Life in 3D
Jun 20, 2009 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Shelah Lekha
Last Sunday, in honor of his seventy-fifth birthday, my father invited his eight grandchildren and their parents to join him on a guided visit of Ellis Island. Toward the conclusion of our tour, having taken in the key sites, we gathered outside, just beyond the stairs that led millions of immigrants from the processing hall and medical examinations to the ferries and barges that took them to Manhattan and beyond. At that spot, my dad shared with his grandchildren the story of his grandfather’s arrival in America, 110 years prior: in 1899, Nathan Mendelsohn, an eleven-year-old native of Iasi, Romania, traveled by ship from Rotterdam to New York.
Read More
Becoming Builders
Jun 6, 2009 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Naso
I imagine that all of us have noticed that the only thing unequivocally going up right now is the number of pundits—professional and amateur—who are chiming in on what it is that economic indicators seem to be telling us. At kiddush in my shul, in airports, on television, and certainly on the Internet, anywhere you turn there are people pontificating about where the economy is headed. While you will certainly hear no projection here, in my own reading what caught my eye were two economic indicators that focus specifically on construction and building.
Read More
Counting Ourselves As Israel
May 23, 2009 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Bemidbar
Sefer Bemidbar, the Book of Numbers, which we begin reading this week, opens with the taking of a census. After the rather arcane matters we have been reading about in recent weeks—the sacrificial cult, laws of purity and impurity, skin eruptions, bodily discharges, and so on—the monotony and repetitiveness of this week’s parashah comes almost as a relief. The chieftains of each tribe are named, and an identical formula is recited, concluding with the number of men over the age of twenty—fighting men—in each tribe. For this is not a census of the entire people, rather it is an accounting of those who will make up an army to cross the desert. The Israelites have just celebrated the first anniversary of their liberation, and they are about to embark on a journey that will last thirty-eight years, although they do not know that at the time of the census. They are forming an army to take the population on what should be a short sojourn to the Promised Land. That they should form an army to cross the desert is not surprising; but, we may ask, why the apparent preoccupation with numbers?
Read More
Rashi’s God and Ibn Ezra’s God
May 16, 2009 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai
I am in the midst of reading Michael Fishbane’s recently published book Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology. Especially compelling, from my perspective, is the emphasis he places on experiencing the act of biblical interpretation which “is understood to foster diverse modes of attention to textual details, which in turn cultivate correlative forms of attention to the world and divine reality” (page xi). To quote my student Rachel Isaacs (rabbinical student in my Advanced Exegesis class), “Fishbane articulates most clearly the reason why rabbinical students are engaged in the types of learning they are. Close reading [of the Torah text] is not a useless skill or a rite of passage. It forces us to have an intimate, thoughtful, and challenging relationship with the text. As a result, we acquire new revelations through the process of encountering the text as much as we do from the content itself.”
Read More
Developing True Leadership
May 9, 2009 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor
Ten years ago, when I began teaching for The Jewish Theological Seminary, I had the honor of teaching in the office of a prominent New York businessman who would go on to become a political visionary and leader. When I was introduced to this executive as “Rabbi” Matthew Berkowitz, he responded by wagging his finger at me, remarking, “You people [read: clergy] are responsible for every conflict in this world.” Though taken aback by his opening salvo, I composed myself and responded, “With all due respect, the problem is not the message but the messenger; and you have yet to meet a good messenger.” While I was proud of my comeback, I also understood the rationale and frustration underlying his comment.
Read More
Caring for Our Parents
May 9, 2009 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim
The third verse of Parashat K’doshim says, “Ish imo v’aviv tira’u” (One should revere his mother and father) (Lev. 19:3). The same mandate appears twice as the fifth commandment, “Kabed et avikha v’et imekha” (Honor your father and your mother) (Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). Honoring parents was considered a virtue in the Roman world. Parents took care of their children, and children were expected to return the favor when parents grew old. But Rome did not create a legal obligation to care for parents, and a child who refused to do so could not be compelled by the courts.
Read More
