The Perils of Leadership
Jul 2, 2011 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Hukkat
Great leadership is about successfully orchestrating change. Whether within organizations, communities, or other social systems, leadership involves developing a vision of the future and implementing strategies to achieve this vision. Exercising leadership means motivating and inspiring people to change habits, attitudes, and values that hold them back from reaching their goals.
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Balam: Prophet, Sorcerer, Saint or Sinner?
Jul 9, 2011 By Jonathan Lipnick | Commentary | Balak
Reading Parashat Balak along with Rashi, the medieval 12th-century French exegete par excellence, one quickly discovers how vilified Balaam is in Midrash. But not all biblical commentators side with Rashi. There’s a fantastic chapter by Nehama Leibowitz (1905鈥�1997) in Studies of Bamidbar entitled “Prophet or Sorcerer?” Rabbi Jacob Milgrom (1923鈥�2010), too, has an article on the subject entitled “Balaam: Saint or Sinner?” in his extraordinary The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers.
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The Danger of Separation
Jul 23, 2011 By Ute Steyer | Commentary | Mattot
There seems to be great fluidity in using tribal affiliations: the story here switches between Moabites and Midianites, and the tribe who sold Josef as a slave is identified in Genesis as both Ishmaelite and Midianite (Gen. 37). Little importance is put on keeping the records straight on who did what and why. This leads me to believe that this account of the war against Midian is not about revenge at all but something else.
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“On the Road”
Jul 30, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Masei
Standing at the precipice of the Promised Land, Moshe looks back with the people and relates their journey with the same sweeping overview that Sal Paradise narrates. 鈥淭hese were the marches of the Israelites who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron鈥� (33:1). What follows through the first half of the parashah is a virtual Trip Tik of the journeys of the children of Israel.
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Tears at the Moon
Aug 13, 2011 By Vivian B. Mann <em>z”l</em> | Commentary | Va'et-hannan
Throughout my youth, I sat next to my grandmother in the synagogue. When we recited the Blessing Over the New Moon, in which we beseech God for a spiritually rewarding life that knows no physical impediments, my grandmother would cry. Each month, I remember her tears and they deepen my understanding of the prayer.
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Challenging the God of Eikev
Aug 20, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Eikev
Parashat Eikev, for me, is brutal. The crush of the Deuteronomic God, the if-then God of wrath and punishment, is overbearing. The choice that God offers in our parashah is not a choice: “And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: He will favor you and bless you . . . (Deut. 7:12鈥�13). On the other hand: “If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve them or bow down to them, I warn you this day that you shall certainly perish . . . ” (Deut. 8:19). The God of Eikev infantilizes, expecting that we will respond to an if-then choice, which is not a choice at all but rather a display of raw power.
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Do We Really Do Tzedakah?
Aug 27, 2011 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Re'eh
By delving into the biblical and rabbinic texts concerning tzedakah, we can begin to discover that what we consider to be tzedakah may not fit the parameters of what our sacred texts are actually demanding of us.
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In the Shadow of the Twin Towers
Sep 10, 2011 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
As we approach the 10th anniversary of this tragedy, we can search in Parashat Ki Tetzei for a way to respond to it. The parashah ends with the verses about Amalek’s attack on the Israelites, shortly after they left Egypt (Deut. 25:17鈥�19). The Torah says, “Remember what Amalek did to you . . . when you were famished and weary, [they] cut down the stragglers in your rear” (v. 18). According to the JPS translation, the words v’lo yarei Elohim (and not fearing God) at the very end of this verse refer not to the Israelites, as one might think, but to Amalek. The enemy did not fear the Divine, and so they attacked. The paragraph goes on to say that when the people of Israel reach their own land and are at peace, they should blot out all memory of Amalek itself, but always remember what Amalek did.
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