The Attention Seeking Bush
Dec 29, 2007 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Shemot
A recent collection of one-liners and witticisms entitled 1,003 Great Things About Being Jewishcontains a section called 鈥淲hat Passersby Said About the Burning Bush.鈥�
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Subverting Abraham As a Knight of Faith
Oct 26, 2007 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Vayera
In a world in which so much violence and pain are caused in the name of religion, how can we read the story of 鈥渢he Binding of Isaac鈥� as anything but what Phyllis Trible would call a 鈥渢ext of terror鈥�?
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Eating in the Wilderness
Sep 24, 2010 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Sukkot
With Sukkot on my mind, the wilderness controversy prompted me to imagine what the Israelites’ experience of the wilderness might be like nowadays in contrast to biblical times. How much of the hardship of their forty-year trek from Egypt to Canaan might they have been spared if their four-wheel (instead of four-legged)-drive vehicles had been guided by GPS rather than meandering pillars of fire and cloud, or if the signage in the desert had amounted to more than a few indecipherable graffiti (even more obscure than Garden State Parkway markers)?
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The Original Walking Man
Nov 15, 2008 By David M. Ackerman | Commentary | Vayera
On the topic of walking, the rock ‘n’ roll references come fast and furious. From Lou Reed’s teasing nudge to “take a walk on the wild side,” to the Rolling Stones’ and Peter Tosh’s advice to “keep on walking and don’t look back,” and from the Grateful Dead’s reflection on “walking around Grosvenor Square,” which leads to the revelatory insight that “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right,” to James Taylor’s evocation of the “walking man,” who “doesn’t do nothing at all,” but walk, our popular culture sees the very basic human act of walking in very personal and highly symbolic terms.
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A Strong Woman in the Bible
Nov 29, 2008 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. When as a girl she sees a stranger at the well, she rushes to water his caravan of thirsty camels, and then invites him to stay at her house. When offered the chance to travel with this man back to a distant land and a mysterious husband, she volunteers without hesitation. When her pregnancy becomes difficult, she seeks out God and challenges Him with the bold question, “Why do I need this?” When her husband seems ready to bless the wrong son, she quickly conspires to rearrange the action so that Jacob will receive the primary blessing. In all of these actions, Rebecca is seen as a woman of strength and decisiveness.
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Why Noah?
Oct 28, 2006 By Sharon Keller | Commentary | Noah
When we think of Parashat Noah, we envision a story that everyone is familiar with from early childhood. In our mind’s eye we can see the ark with its tiered decks and Noah swathed in a white robe, looking out the window as a dove flies off toward a rainbow in the background. If that image is not familiar, a trip to any local bookstore (especially one with a children’s section) will provide a variety of options. Noah figures prominently in our mental version of the story, as he does in Genesis, but is the text focusing on him and his actions, or is the Bible emphasizing something else?
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The First Mitzvah
Oct 24, 2008 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Bereishit
If the Torah is fundamentally a book of law, a work intended to instruct us on how to live a life that is holy and good, why did the Torah begin with the story of creation? More precisely, why did the Torah begin with the story of Genesis鈥攐f God鈥檚 creation of the world鈥攁nd not the first commandment to the Israelites which is to establish a calendar: 鈥淭his month shall be unto you the beginning of the months,鈥� found later in Exodus 12? This is the first question that Rashi, the central medieval commentator on the Torah, asked on the opening words of the book of Genesis.
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Is Seeing Believing?
Oct 23, 2010 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Vayera
Is seeing believing? Or, to put it another way, is seeing necessary for believing? I am not asking a theological question, but a psychological/social/emotional one.
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