The Suffering of Loss

Jun 20, 2014 By Shira D. Epstein | Commentary | Korah

We have grown accustomed to an incessant newsfeed scrolling of horrific natural-disaster footage.

The Clothes Make the (Wo)man

Jun 13, 2014 By Michal Raucher | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

During graduation season, I try to learn everything there is to know about academic dress.

The Working Life

Jun 6, 2014 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

In my family, we are not the retiring type—although we do tend toward shyness.

Can the Center Hold?

May 30, 2014 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Naso

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
—William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Last week, The Jewish Theological Seminary presented an honorary degree to Philip Roth, one of the greatest American writers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The famous author must have received this recognition from an iconic Jewish institution with a certain measure of irony and satisfaction. After all, when his first book was published more than 50 years ago, an outraged American rabbi wrote to the Anti-Defamation League asking, “what is being done to silence that man?”

Walking Together with God

May 16, 2014 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Behukkotai

I saw a strange thing on my walk to minyan the other morning.

Intent of a Question

Jan 8, 2011 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Bo | Pesah

Everyone knows that four children are mentioned in the Passover Haggadah and that one of them is the evil child. Probably fewer of us are aware that the question attributed to this child is a biblical verse found in this week’s Torah portion, “What do you mean by this rite (avodah)?” (Exod. 12:26).

Boundary of the Wilderness

Jul 10, 2010 By Alan Mintz (<em>z”l</em>) | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

The Torah is replete with lists of every kind: the generations before and after Noah, the enumeration of the tribes and their chieftains in the desert, the catalogs of forbidden foods, the inventories of priestly garments.