Judging the Individual, Guiding the Community

Aug 21, 2015 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Shofetim

The 2016 US presidential election primary season has begun with over two dozen potential candidates competing for our support. Keeping track of their positions on the issues feels impossible, but watching them as they present themselves to the American public helps sharpen our thinking, not only about the individual candidates, but also about the leadership qualities we both esteem and eschew in our elected officials.

Serving God

Aug 14, 2015 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Re'eh

Demonstrating uncompromising devotion to God is the theme of this week’s parashah. Such devotion is expressed through belief, but more importantly, through avodah, meaningful service to God. For the biblical Israelite, service to God meant loyalty to God’s commandments and participation in the sacrificial cult. In Deuteronomy, avodah referred specifically to offering sacrifices to God at a central place of worship: “look only to the site that the Lord your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go, and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices. . .” (Deut. 12:5-6).

The Afterlife of Our Actions

Aug 7, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Eikev

Will Israel receive all the rain it needs this coming year? It depends on whether we are faithful to God’s word. At least that is the claim made in a biblical passage that we recite twice a day as part of the Shema:

If, then, you obey the commandments that I have enjoined upon you this day, loving the Lord your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. . .Take care not to be lured way and serve other gods and bow to them. For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain. . . (Deut. 11:13-14, 16-17, NJPS translation)

Many of us are uncomfortable reciting these verses.

Did Moses Die for Us?

Jul 31, 2015 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

What a magnificent and rich Torah reading we have this week, Parashat Va’et-hannan! It’s as if the Torah wants to compensate the Jewish community for the week gone by, a week during which we commemorated Tishah Be’av, the putative anniversary of so many devastating events that have occurred throughout Jewish history. This week’s “reward” is a reading that incorporates a restatement of the Ten Commandments (Deut. 5:6-17) followed almost immediately by the first paragraph of the Shema (6:4-9).

Life Is Good

Sep 23, 2006 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah

One of the things we look forward to as the holidays approach is the renewed encounter with melodies and rituals, texts and tastes, which we have developed great affection for over the years. It’s like the feeling one has at the sight of old friends coming down a path to greet us, prompting recollections of the good times we have enjoyed together. I feel that way about the Torah portions that we read on the two days of Rosh Hashanah. I know them well, after all these years, but as with good friends I still wonder what they will have to say to me this year, and I to them.

Creation As Preparation for Sinai

Oct 21, 2006 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Bereishit

Why did the Torah begin where it does, at the very Beginning, rather than with the first commandment given the children of Israel, which comes well into the Book of Exodus?

Guided by the Covenant

Jan 12, 2007 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shemot

There is a wonderful midrash in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana that suggests a profound relationship between the arrival of the manna described in Parashat Be’shallah and the giving of the Ten Commandments recounted in the following parashah, Yitro. Just as the manna tasted different to each and every Israelite, Rabbi Yosi teaches, so each was enabled according to his or her particular capacity to hear the Divine Word differently at Sinai (12:25).

The Giant and the Ants

Jul 24, 2015 By Raysh Weiss | Commentary | Devarim

As literary critic Erich Auerbach highlights in “Odysseus’ Scar,” the opening chapter of his monumental work of literary criticism, Mimesis, the Bible favors a comparatively terse literary style, presenting even heightened emotional episodes in verb-heavy narrative, largely bereft of extensive dialogue or literary embellishments. Accordingly, those rare instances in which the Torah elaborates in its description of people, places, or events should command our attention as both unusual and worthy of further consideration.