The Spiritual Significance of the Sacrificial Cult
Mar 29, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Shabbat Parah | Tzav
Our Hebrew Scripture is a library of books with many voices, a bracing diversity of literary genres and religious opinions. This is a good week to remind ourselves of that noteworthy fact as we struggle through a double dosage of cultic prescriptions. Our parasha stipulates the tasks incumbent on the priests in administering the sacrifices that ordinary Israelites might offer at the Tabernacle. On top of that, because this Shabbat is the third of the four special Shabbatot leading up to Passover, we are treated to an additional reading dealing with the potion prepared from the ashes of an unblemished red heifer for the purpose of ritual purification.
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A Feminist Mandate
Apr 8, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayak-hel
The recent conference in New York City on “Feminism and Orthodoxy” heralds a major escalation in the confrontation between Jewishly well-educated Orthodox feminists and a bitterly defensive rabbinic establishment. The word on the street in the weeks before the conference was that it would be a brief one, implying that the two topics had nothing in common. But reality proved the cynics wrong. Nearly a thousand Orthodox women of all stripes convened for two days of study, prayer and protest to challenge the gender inequities that abound in contemporary Orthodoxy. The plight of women stranded without benefit of a Jewish divorce from their husbands evoked an added measure of outrage.
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Holy Light: Remembering Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld
Feb 22, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Tetzavveh
This past week at the Seminary, we commemorated the first Yahrzeit of Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld, whose young lives were extinguished one year ago (February 25, 1996) in Jerusalem by the bomb of a Hamas terrorist. Matthew was a second鈥搚ear rabbinical student spending the year studying intensively at the Seminary’s Beit Midrash, and Sara, who had just graduated Barnard, was about to become his fiancee. We used the occasion of their Yahrzeit to dedicate in their memory a spacious room where Seminary students gather each day till late at night to study Talmud in small groups, havruta鈥搒tyle.
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A Thought on Physician-Assisted Suicide
Feb 15, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Terumah
This week Shabbat follows by a day the date assigned by the Talmud (the 7th of Adar) for the death of Moses. The Torah leaves us entirely in the dark as to when Moses died. We are told only at the very end of Deuteronomy that Moses died alone atop Mount Nebo, looking out over the Promised Land. Though advanced in years, Moses did not die of old age: “Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated (34:7).” That is, he died suddenly, without illness and suffering, or in the words of Rashi, by the touch of a divine kiss (on the basis of the phrase “al pi adonai;” literally, “by the mouth of God” – 34:5).
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Judaism As a Relationship
Feb 1, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Yitro
The permanent exhibition of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv begins with a replica of the relief from the Arch of Titus depicting Jewish prisoners bearing Temple artifacts (a large seven-branched menorah, for example) into exile. Nearby a piece of signage unfurls the Museum’s conception of Jewish history: “This is the story of a people which was scattered over all the world and yet remained a single family; a nation which time and again was doomed to destruction and yet out of ruins, rose to new life.” These stirring words attest to an unbroken national will to live. Exile did not end Jewish history nor fragment Jewish unity. Shared consciousness made up for the lack of proximity.
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4 Cups of Wine
Jan 11, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Va'era | Pesah
As envisioned by Rabbi Yehuda ben Tema at the end of the second century, the standard curriculum of a young Jew begins with the study of Bible at five, Mishna at ten and Talmud at fifteen. Age thirteen marks the transition to adulthood with the onset of obligatory adherence to the norms of Jewish life. Our parasha offers an instructive example of what this curriculum entailed, and a fleeting glimpse of the nature of rabbinic Judaism as a whole.
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Israel Divided
Dec 10, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash
As you know, the Haftarah is the prophetic selection with which we take leave from the weekly parasha. The word is a noun which means, “to bring (the Torah reading) to a close.” We do not depart from the Torah abruptly, but gradually with a final reading from the Prophets, chanted from a printed book rather than a handwritten scroll. We withdraw from the realm of the sacred slowly. The prophetic passage chosen always relates to the content of the parasha for that week.
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Making Room for God
Dec 21, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayiggash
Jacob and Joseph, father and son, had been separated for 22 years. At first the exclamation of his sons that Joseph was not only alive but ruled over all of Egypt was met with stony silence. Jacob did not dare let their words shatter the emotional equilibrium he had forged out of his suffering. It was only upon seeing the vehicles of Egyptian design sent by Joseph that Jacob softened his resistance. His spirit sprang back to life and he insisted on leaving for Egypt immediately to behold once again his long lost son.
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