The Poetry of Forgiveness

Sep 30, 2006 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Shabbat Shuvah

Poetry is the soul of religion.

The Torah’s Lessons for Society

May 25, 2008 By Edward Feld | Commentary | Behukkotai

The concluding parashah of Leviticus, Behukkotai, centers on God’s enumeration of both blessing and curse—the blessings that will follow upon observance of the commandments and the curses that will result from violation of the commandments.

A Jewish-Buddhist Understanding of Holiness

May 3, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Kedoshim

Leon Wieseltier, in a recent column in The New Republic about diversity at Harvard, commented about the church bells he heard growing up on Avenue O.

The Lesson of the First Fruits

Sep 20, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Remarkably, no pedestrian injuries have been recorded to date.

New Beginnings

Sep 13, 2008 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

September marks new beginnings. Summer’s over, school years have begun, heavy traffic has returned to the roads, the new cultural season is underway.

Moral Leadership

Dec 31, 2005 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Miketz

“Some writers flatly assert that dreams know nothing of moral obligations; others as decidedly declare that the moral nature of man persists even in his dream–life.” Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

After interpreting Pharaoh’s dream prophesizing the demise of Egypt as the will of God, with a degree of autonomy that we have yet to see, Joseph applies his own thought process and looks beyond interpretation.

Not by Might

Dec 11, 1993 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah

It is a remarkable tribute to the genius of the Jewish calendar that parashat mikaytz always coincides with Shabbat Hanukkah. The contents of both, I shall argue, deserve to be linked.

But let me start off on a personal note. Hanukkah has always held a special meaning for me and my family. On November 3, 1938, I turned three. Six days later, on the infamous night of Kristallnacht, the Nazis unleashed their fury on the synagogues of Germany, including the magnificent Romanesque synagogue of my father in Hanover. Like thousands of other prominent Jews, he was carted off to a concentration camp, to be released only two weeks later when family in England secured a visa for us with the help of the Chief Rabbi, Joseph Hertz, known to you best as the editor of the Hertz Humash.

Complete Repentance

Dec 27, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz

Early on in his laws of repentance, Maimonides gives us a definition of the highest form of repentance:

What is complete repentance? When we are confronted with a situation in which we previously sinned and could do so again, but this time we desist not out of fear or weakness but because we have repented. An example: a man has sexual relations with a woman in violation of the Torah. Sometime later he finds himself alone with her again in the same place with ardor and virility undiminished. However, this time he departs without the slightest impropriety. Such a person has attained the level of complete repentance.