Mourning a Sister
Nov 29, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Toledot
The Shiva is over. I have reentered the world emotionally drained and self-absorbed. My sister, my only sibling, was also my friend. We shared so much of our adult lives. My wife and I were married in her home. Her first husband, an obstetrician for whom the practice of medicine was his calling, delivered our three children. Their spacious and relaxed home in Vineland, New Jersey provided us a refuge full of love, companionship and good conversation. We traveled together, mourned together and always celebrated the Passover sedarim together.
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Faith in Israel’s Destiny
Nov 22, 1997 By Morton M. Leifman z”l | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
This week’s Torah portion, Haye Sarah, provides us with yet another ancient episode that eventually contributed to the molding of the mythic consciousness of our people in a profound way. It begins with the death of Sarah and continues on with a lengthy description of the legal and business arrangements necessary for Abraham’s acquisition of land for Sarah’s burial. Abraham’s status in the land of Canaan is that of ger v’toshav, a resident alien, and though a man of great substance, even a person of renown, one honored in the community, his legal status required that he obtain special permission both from the owner of the land and from the community as a whole to buy and to own property. Members of the native clans were reluctant to confer full rights even to resident aliens — especially the right to land ownership which conceivably might deplete the holdings of the progeny of those currently blessed with political control.
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Giving Women a Voice
Nov 7, 1997 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Vayera
I did not celebrate my bat mitzvah on parashat Vayera; in fact, I never celebrated it at all. My birthday on 19 Heshvan gives me, as a legitimate birthright, permission to indulge in constant grappling with this incredibly rich and complex text. Yet I have never voiced that connection with a proper celebration of my Jewish coming of age.
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Abraham’s Landsmann
Nov 7, 1997 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
I was honored when Chancellor Schorsch asked me to fill in for him and write a d’var torah on Parashat Lech Lecha, because for this one week each year he and I are Landsmann. The word, in German or Yiddish, denotes compatriots, fellow countrymen. My own family ancestry traces back to Byelorussia, my grandparents hailing from Minsk and Pinsk. The Chancellor comes, as his readers surely know, from Germany. But each of us share a patrimony in this week’s Torah reading, for Parashat Lech Lecha was the bar mitzvah portion each of us chanted in our respective congregations all those many years ago.
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Trading Pharaoh for God?
Jan 31, 1998 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]? (Exodus 12:26).
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Empathy for the Other
Feb 7, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beshallah | Pesah
It took God but six days to create the world; it took my mother at least twice that long to prepare for Passover. At the seder on the first night she would often doze contentedly from a mild case of exhaustion. Everything sparkled; nothing was out of place. The beauty of the table and the aromas coming from the kitchen attested to her toil and artistry. By turning ritual into a fine art, she enhanced the presence of God at our family seder.
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A Stranger to Israel
Jan 17, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemot
I find the figure of Moses endlessly fascinating. He is the founder of Israel and its greatest prophet, a sculptor who works with human life, transforming a clan into a nation, a motley multitude into a polity of high moral order. Seized by God, he labors to complete the social vision first glimpsed by Abraham. As his ancestor abjured the religion of Mesopotamia, he rejects the religion of Egypt. In their stead, he voices the full scope of monotheism and lends it both cultic and political form. The measure of the man lies in the odds against him: the might of the Egyptian empire, the unheroic nature of a people impaired by slavery and his status as a stranger to Israelite society.
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A Strategy of Inclusion
Nov 17, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Toledot
The disputes over water rights between Isaac and the King of Gerar have a contemporary ring. Beyond the current Intifada looms the persistent shortage of water that threatens Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians alike. With the Kinneret at its lowest ebb ever and aquifers depleted and increasingly polluted, the region’s bitter adversaries are at least united in their hopes for a rainy winter.
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