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The Power of Paradox for the Religious Life

Jan 15, 2016 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Bo

There are a few texts that have helped me get through dark and difficult periods in my religious life, first amongst them being several paragraphs by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik buried in a footnote in his essay Halakhic Man. At another stage of my life long since gone, I yearned for a simple faith in God. I yearned for a transcendent framework that might help me feel closer to a God that too many times felt too far away. I had believed that a sense of wholeness and integration were possible goals for the religious life.

Noah’s Repetition and Contradiction

Oct 24, 2009 By David C. Kraemer | Commentary | Noah

Read the Noah story—the whole thing, from the very end of Genesis 5 and not just from the beginning of the parashah—and you will immediately sense that there is a problem. Why are there so many repetitions, tensions, and outright contradictions? Why are we told twice about Noah’s offspring (5:32 and 6:10)? Why does the story offer two explanations for God’s decision to destroy all creatures, removing them from the face of the earth—one explanation relating to the transgression of the divine/human divide and the wickedness of the human heart (6:1-7), and the other relating to human violence (6:11-12)?

Connecting to an Ancient Text

Oct 31, 2009 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

A wondrous quality of Torah study is that you can link the parashah to nearly any time, place, or subject. This puzzle is enjoyed by rabbis every week—how can I connect the ancient text to our contemporary context? I embrace this challenge, yet sometimes it makes me wonder: how much are we gleaning from the text, and how much are we interpolating?

Athiests and the Torah

Nov 14, 2009 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Oh, if the atheists read the Torah! During this week’s parashah, we encounter a text that could have been fodder for the atheist argument against prayer. Shortly before his death, Abraham calls his senior servant for one last assignment. The servant is to return to Abraham’s homeland to find a fitting wife for Isaac, and, after swearing that Abraham’s bidding will be done, he sets off.

Leading with Absence

Feb 12, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Tetzavveh

With the first words of our parashah, we see the shadow, but not the body, of a man.

“V’ata tetzavvah et b’nai yisrael” (Exod. 27:20): “And you shall instruct the children of Israel” in the production of oil for the menorah to be used in the Tabernacle.

Only two verses later we read:

“V’ata hakrev eilekha et aharon ahiekha v’et banav eto” (28:1): “And you shall bring forward Aaron your brother and his sons . . . to serve Me [God] as priests.”

The Arab Spring and Ancient Israel

Feb 19, 2011 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Ki Tissa

What an amazing juxtaposition! The (near) miraculous events in Egypt that we witnessed on news broadcasts over the past week coincide with Parashat Ki Tissa, the Torah reading for this Shabbat. The circumstances of the two are wildly different, yet the fundamental human concerns in each setting overlap to an extraordinary degree.

The Religious Significance of Our Relationships

Feb 26, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Vayak-hel

Among the many methods of explicating verses and devising halakhah, the Rabbis list s’michut parashiyot (connection of phrases). The essential idea is that proximity of biblical verses suggests a correlation of their greater subject matters. Or, in our common parlance: “Location, location, location.” This week, we have an example that illustrates the method.

Strengthening Ourselves

Mar 5, 2011 By David Marcus | Commentary | Pekudei | Shabbat Shekalim

This Shabbat is one of beginnings and endings. It is a Shabbat of beginnings because it is the first of the four special Shabbatot preceding Pesah, and it is called Shabbat Shekalim. But this Shabbat is also a Shabbat of endings. The parashah for the week, Parashat Pekudei, describes the concluding stages of the construction of the Mishkan by the craftsman Bezalel and the entire band of Israelite workers.