A Lesson for Abraham
Oct 23, 2015 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Lekh Lekha was the first parashah I ever learned. As kids in Hebrew school, we were not taught Bereishit or Noah, probably because of the theological questions they would raise. We began Bible study with Lekh Lekha. I am happy to return to it as an adult and try to understand its message anew.
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Before the Deluge
Oct 16, 2015 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Noah
Parashat Noah raises difficult questions about the relationships between the natural world, humanity’s morality, and God’s justice.
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An Anthology of Beginnings
Oct 9, 2015 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Bereishit
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” These opening words of the Torah in most translations are clear, straightforward, and well known. But they don’t render the Hebrew original correctly. As Rashi already pointed out, the first verse of the Torah is not, by itself, a grammatical sentence. Instead, it is part of a longer sentence that continues through the end of verse three.
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Grief in a Time of Joy
Oct 2, 2015 By Alex Braver | Commentary | Sukkot
My mother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia the day before Erev Rosh Hashanah last year. Through the Days of Awe we discussed her genetic profile, her symptoms, bone marrow transplants, and chemotherapy. We approached Hanukkah unsure of what was working and what wasn’t. She died on Purim.
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The Ending That Wasn’t
Sep 25, 2015 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Ha'azinu
We Jews are not a religious lot. In fact, by a variety of metrics cited in the recent Pew report, Jews are less religious than any other religious group in America. For instance, only one quarter of Jews say religion is “very important” in their lives, compared with more than half of Americans overall. More to the point that I’d like to explore, a belief in God is much more common among the general non-Jewish public than among Jews.
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Safe in God’s Memory
Sep 11, 2015 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Nitzavim | Rosh Hashanah
This week’s Torah portion, Nitzavim, contains stunningly beautiful verses that teach us that God’s Torah “is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it” (Deut. 30:14). The language of the verses is full of rich, physical imagery, “It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’” The Torah, the wisdom, is not far away, is not other. It is in our hearts. If we give our hearts space to be known and embraced, our hearts can share the wisdom that dwells inside. With this space, the wisdom of Torah emerges in new ways. It is not general; it is very specific to each person, to the challenges and blessings that he or she has encountered in his or her life.
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Speaking God, Speaking Humanity
Sep 4, 2015 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Ki Tavo
What makes the Jews God’s people? On Yom Kippur, when we sing Ki anu amekha ve’atah Elohenu (For we are Your people and You are our God), what are we talking about? Is this triumphalism, elitism, exclusivity? Or could it be an ethic of communal, legislated kindness?
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Family Matters
Aug 28, 2015 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
Academic talmudists are often asked, “Of what use are the findings of academic Jewish Studies to lay people? Can historical research inform our contemporary dialogue on the pressing issues of our day?” I propose that developments in family law from biblical to Rabbinic times have much to teach us in our evaluating the rapidly changing values and their accompanying changing laws in our own times.
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