Ethics of Solidarity and Civil Equality: From the Parashah to the Knesset

Aug 24, 2018 By Hillel Ben Sasson | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

From the narrative of Adam and Eve to the very last verses of Chronicles, the Hebrew Bible and specifically the Torah may be read as a process by which individuals and collectives are selected or separated. The Christian New Testament sends its redeeming message universally, to all human beings: “There is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Exceptions notwithstanding (Isa. 2:1-2, for example), our Tanakh is far more particularistic. 

Finding Our Place in a Universalistic Age

Jul 6, 2018 By JTS Alumni | Commentary

By Rabbi Juan Mejia (RS ’09)

Israel and Humanity is the magnum opus of Italian rabbi and polymath Elijah Benamozegh. Born in the cosmopolitan city of Livorno in Italy in the early nineteenth century (only one year before JTS´s founder Rabbi Sabato Morais was born in the same city), Rabbi Benamozegh was a distinguished community leader, printer, kabbalist, and public intellectual both in Jewish and non-Jewish circles. In his erudite but extremely approachable and poetic treatise, Israel and Humanity, Benamozegh presents a bold and refreshing view of Judaism vis-a-vis other religions (with special emphasis on Christianity). 

Songs for the Holy City: An Interfaith Evening of Music and Prayer

Jun 20, 2018 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A unique gathering of clergy, vocalists, and musicians from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions leading us in song and prayer for the peace and future of Jerusalem/Yerushalayim/Al Quds. Inspired by similar gatherings in Jerusalem, the event tapped the collective power of our three faiths to help us transcend divisions and plant seeds of cooperation and respect.

The Beauty of the Word

Jun 1, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Take a look at these pages from a volume in our collection that includes the Pentateuch and Psalms, along with Masoretic notes and a grammatical introduction. It will not surprise you to learn that it was written in Yemen in 1325. Locating the manuscript in this time and place doesn’t surprise, because, stylistically speaking, it is so similar to Islamic art of the same period. As you may know, Muslims overwhelmingly avoided representation of living creatures in their art (the same cannot be said of Jews, who habitually ignored the second commandment), preferring to create their “images” with the words of scripture (in their case, the Quran).

Maimonides and the Merchants

Feb 9, 2018 By JTS Alumni | Commentary

By Dr. Mark R. Cohen (RS ’70, GS ’76)

In my new book, I explore a relatively unknown aspect of Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah, his comprehensive code of Jewish law. The study offers insight into Judaism’s continued evolution to account for wider societal trends and illustrates how the personal experience of lawmakers influences law.

Kashrut and Refugees

Feb 9, 2018 By Julia Andelman | Commentary | Mishpatim

There’s an old joke based on the three appearances of the commandment “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”—the first being in this week’s parashah, Mishpatim (Exod. 23:19). The narrow prohibition against “eating the flesh of an animal together with the milk that was meant to sustain it” (Etz Hayim, 474) was expanded over time into a vast array of laws regarding the separation of all dairy and all meat.

Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals

Feb 2, 2018 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary

The most controversial tractate of the Talmud is undoubtedly Avodah Zarah, which discusses non-Jews and their religious practices. Most of the Talmudic passages in Justinas Bonaventura Pranaitis’s 1898 anti-Talmudic screed, Christianus in Talmud Iudaeorum (The Christian in the Talmud of the Jews) are drawn from this tractate. A surface reading of Avodah Zarah can be a demoralizing experience for modern Jews. Even though the Talmud is replete with more broadly humanistic statements, most of us would be scandalized by the provincial and xenophobic attitude toward non-Jews that one could take away from a rapid read through Avodah Zarah.

Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World

Dec 4, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Mark R. Cohen’s new book Maimonides and the Merchants suggests that, like the Geonim before him, Maimonides wished to provide Jewish merchants an alternative and comparable forum to the Islamic legal system and thereby shore up an important cornerstone of communal autonomy.