“My Heart Is in the East”
Jul 22, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Masei | Mattot
The stirring words of the medieval poet of Zion, Yehudah HaLevi, echo through each and every generation: “My heart is in the East, and I am in the far reaches of the West.”
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Exposing Narrative Fissures
Jul 15, 2006 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Pinehas
As a guest columnist for the New York Times this past Friday, Judith Warner shared that her nine鈥搚ear鈥搊ld daughter “was terrified of narrative tension 鈥� cliffhanger pauses, unanswered questions, any sense of foreboding or even strong anticipation.”
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Hearing God’s Voice
Jul 8, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Hukkat
We communicate with each other and with God through our voices.
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What Makes Us Holy?
Jul 1, 2006 By Charles Savenor | Commentary | Korah
Remembered mainly as the power鈥揾ungry rebel swallowed by the earth for challenging Moses and Aaron’s authority, Korah is also depicted by the Midrash as a wealthy and successful former minister in Pharaoh’s court and the patriarch of his Levitical family clan.
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Proclaiming Freedom
May 15, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim
On our way to Shavuot from Pesach, we read three Torah portions that epitomize the deep structure of Judaism. The challenge of freedom is to make it a blessing. How can we avoid frittering it away in dissipation, keeping it from morphing into a curse? The Hebrew names of these parshiyot bear the message: mountain, laws and wilderness. The Torah forges a religion designed to get us through the chaos of an engulfing wilderness with a ramified system of legal prescriptions whose inspiration is rooted in the revelation at Mount Sinai. A faith-based community is the matrix of individual survival in a hostile environment.
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The Continuing Revelation
May 8, 2004 By Joshua Heller | Commentary | Emor
“What did he know, and when did he know it?” seems to be a particularly current question, but it can be effective in exploring the meaning of ancient texts as well. When applied to this week’s parashah – Emor, it helps provide a rare insight into the process of revelation and the evolution of Jewish law. Was revelation limited to one flash of prophetic vision and forty days of fast and furious dictation atop Mount Sinai or was it a process that took place over months and years?
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The Story of Pig As Taboo
Apr 17, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shemini
In 1922, Professor Mordecai Kaplan of the Seminary faculty confided in his diary, “There can be no question that sooner or later Judaism will have to get along without dietary laws.” Though he personally observed kashrut both inside and outside his home, the pressure of the melting pot was definitely not conducive to keeping kosher. How astonishingly different are the prospects today! In the fall of 1990, an observer of the kosher food industry in America wrote that about 18,000 kosher products were then on the market, with ever more companies switching to the certification of new items. By 2002 there were over 75,000. The industry has grown to a $6 billion market involving some 9 million customers who look for kosher products. We live in a country where, it would seem, kashrut has taken on a significance far beyond its role in the Jewish community!
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Bringing the Messianic Redeption
Apr 3, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Tzav | Pesah
The most distinctive feature of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the Great Sabbath just before Passover, is that it called for a sermon. For in the pre-emancipation synagogue, the rabbi customarily spoke but twice a year: on the Shabbat prior to Passover and on the Shabbat between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, Shabbat Shuvah. These sermons tended to be halakhic in character, reminding congregants of the elaborate and proper observance of the holy day to come.
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