Finding Political Guidance in the Torah
Jun 7, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Naso
We Jews are up to our necks in political concern these days, in part because power and influence are ours to an unprecedented degree. How shall we think about these matters? Is there a Jewish approach to politics in general, and to these sorts of issues in particular?
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Va-ethannan’s Personal Message to Us
Aug 16, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
But what really draws me to Va-ethannan, I think, is the way it reaches out to each one of us individually, both pleading and demanding to be heard. It addresses us person by person, one-on-one, in the same way we enter into every serious relationship and tremble with each true love.
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The Path to Mitzvah
Sep 30, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah
If the Torah is fundamentally a book of law, a work intended to instruct us on how to live a life that is holy and good, why did the Torah begin with the story of creation? More precisely, why did the Torah begin with the story of Genesis—of God’s creation of the world—and not the first commandment to the Israelites which is to establish a calendar: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of the months,” found later in Exodus 12?
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Taking the Journey with Abraham
Nov 7, 2008 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Five short verses after he (and we) first encounter that Land on which the Jewish future will turn ever after, a famine sends Abraham down to the place where he (and we) spend the remainder of chapter 12 of Genesis, a foreign land where he gets embroiled in a complex interaction with the Pharaoh that foreshadows a great deal of the text and history to come.
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The Heart of Pharaoh
Jan 30, 2009 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Bo
God “has hardened [Pharoah’s] heart and the hearts of his courtiers” in order to teach them and the entire world a painful and difficult lesson about where true power resides. In order to understand that lesson, I think, we must try to understand Pharaoh.
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When Theology Fails
Mar 17, 2009 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shemini | Yom Hashoah
There is a fearful symmetry to the three chapters that make up this week’s parashah; symmetry made all the more fearful because the harmonies of theme and structure in Sh’mini contrast so mightily with the awful events it describes.
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I Can’t Stand My Neighbor, but His Ox Needs a Hand
Feb 13, 2015 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Mishpatim
A rabbi and an astronomer have the middle and window seats on a long-haul flight while the fellow on the aisle is a champion sleeper. As neither of our sophisticated travelers is taking a stroll anytime soon, the astronomer begins to talk: “Tell me, rabbi. What, essentially, is Judaism for?” The rabbi thinks a bit, casting about for a reasonable response. He offers a few broad strokes and believes he’s done about as well as might be expected. The traveler responds, “All these rules and teachings and traditions, rabbi! Can’t it all be boiled down to ‘Be Nice?’” The rabbi nods and says, “All these galaxies and black holes and neutrinos and supernovas . . . professor, can’t it all be boiled down to ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star?’”
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The Bite of Desire
Feb 6, 2015 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Yitro
Do you covet? I do, and it makes me sad. Perhaps I’m too hard on myself. We all see things that we want, don’t have, and wish we did. There is too much in the world that is bright and shiny—offering pleasure and excitement—not to see it and feel the ache of its absence in my life. And I speak not only of the ephemeral delights that beckon. Even more difficult to contemplate are my fellow human beings whose personal and professional lives leave me despondent when measuring myself against them: scholars who have written books that I haven’t, friends who seem to be better spouses or more successful parents, people who have paid off their mortgages, men who still have all their hair. In short, the list is endless.
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