91快播

Can We Grow?

Dec 29, 2017 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Vayehi

Family relationships are often complicated, but the family of Jacob is a particularly jumbled mess. In this week鈥檚 parashah, the story has hints and echoes of a decades-long, tangled skein of family dynamics. We see these in two particularly problematic scenes in this parashah. Both scenes illustrate William Faulkner鈥檚 truism that 鈥渢he past is never dead. It’s not even past.鈥� And in this story, we see how the past leaks into the future.

The Life of a Hebrew Poet

Dec 29, 2017 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary

Born in 1873 in Zhitomir, Ukraine, Hayim Nahman Bialik went on to become the greatest Hebrew poet 鈥渟ince the time of Yehudah Halevi.鈥� Holtzman identifies what made Bialik a national poet of the Jewish people: 鈥渁 biography of epic, symbolic dimensions; a profound sense of involvement and identification with the national drama; and incontestable literary genius鈥� (62). From humble beginnings in a family involved in the lumber trade, Bialik left at age 17 for the Volozhin yeshiva in Lithuania. There he immersed himself in yeshiva learning while simultaneously expanding his secular knowledge in preparation for academic studies in Berlin. 

Shylock and the Jews

Dec 22, 2017 By Edna Nahshon | Commentary

In 1960, a global wave of anti-Semitic incidents led Orson Welles, known for his daring Shakespeare productions, to cancel his plans to star in The Merchant of Venice even though playing Shylock had been his lifelong ambition. He had been thwarted twice, he said. First, 鈥渁 man called Hitler made it impossible,鈥� and now, again, he felt he needed to give up the project as 鈥渉ate merchants started scribbling swastikas all over the place,鈥� referring to the onslaught of synagogue desecrations that had begun on Christmas Day 1959 in Cologne, Germany.  

Hearing Our Own Stories

Dec 22, 2017 By Zohar Atkins | Commentary | Vayiggash

Although we know how it ends, this week鈥檚 Torah reading can be, by turns, anxiety-provoking, cathartic, and unsettling. We know a reconciliation between the brothers will take place, but we don鈥檛 fully understand how. We know a peace deal will be reached, but we suspect that, like all new agreements, its character will be tenuous, fragile, and ad hoc, its consensus constructed atop a minefield of lingering resentments and fundamentally conflicting narratives.

The Life of a Book

Dec 15, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Every book has a life of its own, sometimes mundane and sometimes astonishing. The life of the book in which this page is found has been quite extraordinary. The book is a Hebrew Bible. It was born of fine parchment and ink, shaped by craftsmen and scribes who spared no effort to make it the best of its kind. It was written for a wealthy family in Toledo, Spain, in the 15th century, in order that they 鈥渁nd their children and their children鈥檚 children鈥� might study it forever. Remarkably, it has survived to this day.

The Hanukkah Story I Need to Hear This Year

Dec 15, 2017 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Hanukkah

Stories have great power. We tell stories about ourselves and about our communities because they give our lives meaning, and they help us navigate between the past and the future. We use stories to help us make sense of the world and our place in it. Not far behind the seemingly innocent plots of many of the stories we tell about our community’s religious history lie profound cultural responses to our most pressing questions about what it means to be a human being and how to live life well.

Yosef: A Light in the Darkness

Dec 8, 2017 By Eitan Fishbane | Commentary | Vayeshev | Hanukkah

Parashat Vayeshev takes us deep into the pain and alienation of being human, of yearning from a low place of darkness and suffering. And yet the narrative also conveys the power of hope鈥攁 longing for God and redemption, for spiritual and moral healing in our human relationships.

Restoring a Commentary Maligned

Dec 8, 2017 By 91快播 Alumni | Commentary

By Dr. Morris M. Faierstein (GS 鈥�75)

The Ze鈥檈nah U-Re鈥檈nah was first published about 1610 and has since been reprinted 275 times. Despite this great popularity, this edition is the first complete annotated critical translation of this classic to be published. Since the end of the nineteenth century, conventional wisdom has held that the Ze鈥檈nah U-Re鈥檈nah was a Yiddish translation of the humash written for women and ignorant men who could not understand the text in Hebrew. 

Wrestling the Angels and the Demons within Us

Dec 1, 2017 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Vayishlah

In this week鈥檚 Torah reading, Parashat Vayishlah, we read of the patriarch Jacob鈥檚 journey home with his family after freeing himself and his entire clan from his father-in-law, Laban鈥檚, control. Along the route, Jacob prepares himself for his eventual reunion with his older twin brother Esau, whom he fears to be vengeful. Right in the middle of the parashah, in between the description of Jacob鈥檚 preparations and his actual meeting with Esau, Jacob is involved in a transformative experience: a physical struggle with a stranger.

A Sage for Today

Dec 1, 2017 By Barry Holtz | Commentary

In my new biography of Rabbi Akiva, I have tried to draw upon the latest scholarship about rabbinic stories to present the outlines of his life anew for our times, in the light of what we know about how to read these stories from our tradition and about the historical context of the ancient Jewish world. My goal was to present the various stories about Akiva鈥檚 life in an intellectually serious but accessible manner, highlighting their literary character and trying to discern the ways that Akiva鈥檚 story might speak to people today. 

Escaping a Toxic Relationship

Nov 24, 2017 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Vayetzei

Poor Jacob is triply triangulated in Parashat Vayetzei! His boss, Laban, is not only his uncle, Rebecca鈥檚 older brother, but also his father-in-law, Leah and Rachel鈥檚 father. Leah and Rachel are bitter rivals, Leah resenting Jacob鈥檚 love for Rachel, and Rachel wishing for children when God has blessed only Leah with fertility. Complicating this tangle of relationships is the fact that Jacob and Laban work together, and Laban is not a fair employer. 

What Makes a Book 鈥淭orah鈥�?

Nov 24, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

In the manuscript age, what distinguished 鈥淭orah鈥� from other writing? One of the key answers to this question is that manuscripts were fluid and each copy therefore different from any other, while Torah鈥攁s the word of God and the source of Jewish tradition鈥攈ad to be precise and unchanging.

A Family of Covenant

Nov 17, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

The stories of Genesis are presented as family portraits, but simultaneously they describe the origins of a religious civilization. How did the people of Israel acquire and maintain its distinctive religious mission? Genesis offers not only a window into Israel鈥檚 past, but a blueprint for its future. Implicit is an invitation to contribute to this unfolding narrative, attaching the threads of our lives to the tapestry woven by our ancestors. 

Speaking to God, Speaking to People

Nov 17, 2017 By 91快播 Alumni | Commentary | Text Study

By Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin (RS 鈥�90)

Adonai, open my lips that my mouth may speak your praise. (Psalms 51:17)

My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from deceit. (BT Berakhot 17a, based on Psalms 34:14)

At different stages of my life prayer has been a challenge, but I have found it meaningful to think not just about each individual prayer but how the structure of the service helps us experience different facets of prayer. 

Leaving Home

Nov 10, 2017 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

To the best of my knowledge, Hayyei Sarah contains the only instance in Tanakh of a parent asking his child鈥檚 wishes. Laban and Betuel cannot come to an agreement with Abraham鈥檚 servant鈥攚ho we鈥檒l call Eliezer鈥攁bout whether Rebecca should remain in Haran for a time or depart immediately to Canaan. And so, they ask Rebecca to state her preference. Contrary to her family鈥檚 express wishes, Rebecca decides to leave immediately.

A Time for Silence and a Time for Speaking

Nov 10, 2017 By Matthew Goldstone | Commentary | Text Study

Whoever is able to protest against the [sins of the] people of his household and does not protest is caught in the [sins] of his household; against [the sins of] the people of his city [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the people of his city; against [the sins of] the whole world [and does not protest] is caught in the [sins] of the whole world.

鈥擝abylonian Talmud, Shabbat 54b

Women of Faith

Nov 3, 2017 By Amy Kalmanofsky | Commentary | Vayera

Abraham passed God鈥檚 litmus test of faith. God commands Abraham to take his beloved son Isaac to the land of Moriah and kill him. Faithful Abraham does not hesitate. Genesis 22 may be the most loved and hated story in the Torah by every reader, no matter what their faith. Certainly, generations of Jews have struggled to make sense of this story, and of the father and God it portrays. 

The Rabbis, the Romans, and Us

Nov 3, 2017 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary

In my most recent book I take up a quintessentially American Jewish subject: can we adopt the broader culture in which we live and still be Jewish? Is it possible to have a strong Jewish identity while living as Americans who are university educated and share our lives with our gentile neighbors? To answer this I turned to the centuries and texts which birthed Judaism as we know it.

Land and People鈥擶hen Things Get Real

Oct 27, 2017 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

Lekh Lekha is one of my favorite parashiyot because it marks the entrance of the biblical narrative 鈥渋nto history.鈥� Putting aside the historicity of the Bible鈥攖he subject of no small scholarly debate鈥擫ekh Lekha departs from the preceding biblical text as it introduces us to the lands, people, and civilizations that will serve as a backdrop for the millennia of triumph and tribulation that await Abraham, his descendants, and their contemporaries. Until now, the story has been fundamentally supernatural and ahistorical鈥攖he creation of the world and all that is in it, heavenly gifts and divine punishment, a cataclysmic flood, and extensive genealogies of the forebears of future nations, whose lifespans number in the hundreds of years.

Distance Learning from the Back of Shul

Oct 27, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

When we think of 鈥渢he book鈥� (as in 鈥渢he people of the book鈥�), we picture a bound volume with pages sitting open before a reader on a table or a lap. It we are speaking of the Torah, that book is typically a humash, which will often be found in the seat back of the seat in front of you in the synagogue. The same is true of a prayer book.