Tip the Scales
Sep 18, 2020 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
“—who will live and who will die . . . who will come to an untimely end . . . . who by plague . . . who will be brought low, and who will be raised up?” (U-netaneh Tokef, from the High Holiday liturgy)
In my earliest memory of this prayer, I am a young girl standing between my mother and grandmother in synagogue amidst hundreds of others. Both women are sobbing uncontrollably, as they recited these words. I was puzzled by their outward display of anguish but knew enough not to interrupt them to ask what caused it. They grasped in a way I had yet to comprehend just how tenuous life is; they understood that this one prayer more than any other captures the fragility of human life that the Days of Awe magnify.
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The Wholeness of a Broken Tablet
Jul 31, 2020 By Naomi Kalish | Commentary | Va'et-hannan | Tishah Be'av
Parashat Va’et-hannan (Deut. 3–7) is always read on Shabbat Nahamu—the “Shabbat of Comfort”—which falls immediately after Tishah Be’av, the day when we commemorate the destruction of the First and Second Temples. It receives its name from the opening line of the Haftarah: “Comfort, comfort, my people” (Isaiah 40:1).
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Faith, Forgiveness and Prayer: Finding Meaning in the Days of Awe
Aug 31, 2020 By Jan Uhrbach | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Rosh Hashanah | Yom Kippur
A series of online classes with JTS faculty and staff
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The Ten Commandments in 20/20
May 26, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Shavuot
The Ten Commandments, read on the first day of Shavuot, are a foundational text of Judaism. But their prominence is also a puzzle. Why were these statements singled out from all other mitzvot to be publicly proclaimed to all Israel? What gives these brief pronouncements their distinctive significance?
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Ruth’s Torah Matters Now
May 28, 2020 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Shavuot
Like every Jewish holiday, Shavuot has seasonal and historical components. It celebrates the gifts of Torah and of the spring harvest. Both bounties manifest God’s glory, sustain Israel, and are captured masterfully by our liturgy.
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JTS Seder Supplement for the COVID-19 Pandemic
Apr 6, 2020 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Collected Resources | Pesah
Selected thoughts on the Haggadah in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
