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On Preventing the Hardening of Hearts
Jan 16, 2015 By Danielle Upbin | Commentary | Va'era
After a long walk across the park on a Shabbat winter morning in New York City, services concluded, guests assembled at an Upper East Side apartment. The host of this particular Rabbinical School student gathering held the meal hostage. The ransom was the answer to his question: 鈥淲hy did God harden Pharaoh鈥檚 heart?鈥漈he host had a group of well-educated, eager to answer, soon-to-be rabbis at his disposal. From them, he wasn鈥檛 going to accept any rehearsed responses, such as 鈥淕od had to prove Himself to the Israelites.鈥� Much to the students鈥� relief, this trial was interrupted by the hostess, and the first course was served. It was a meal unfinished, for even as we all said grace after the meal, we remained, as our host, unsatisfied.
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Eternity in a Word
Jan 16, 2015 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Va'era
God鈥檚 name YHVH is the verb 鈥渢o be鈥� with the past, present, and future tenses folded into the same conjugation: Eternity or Being in a single word.
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Cultivating Compassion & Connection
Jan 9, 2015 By Mona Fishbane | Commentary | Shemot
At the end of chapter two of Shemot, we find the Israelites groaning from their bondage in Egypt: their cry rose up to God. And, our text tells us, God heard their cry (vayishma), remembered the covenant (vayizkor), saw the children of Israel (vayar), and took notice or knew (vayeda). I want to explore with you the relational and ethical lessons we can learn from these verses in our own lives. In doing so, I am inspired by comments in the Kedushat Levi, the book written by the Hasidic Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. I am grateful to Jonathan Slater and his new book, A Partner in Holiness, for bringing the insights of the Kedushat Levi to my attention.
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Illustrations of Moses in the Amsterdam Haggadah, 1695
Jan 9, 2015 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Shemot | Pesah
Strikingly, Moses is barely mentioned in the text of the Haggadah, despite his prominence in the Torah鈥檚 account of the Exodus that begins with this week鈥檚 parashah. He is, however, prominently featured in some editions via the illustrations.
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Final Blessings
Dec 30, 2014 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Vayehi
One model of family caring for the dying is embodied powerfully in this week鈥檚 parashah. Jacob, aware that he is dying, speaks plain words to his sons: 鈥淚 am about to die鈥� (Gen. 48:21) . . . 鈥淚 am about to be gathered to my kin鈥� (49:29). By giving voice to the reality that his life is ending, Jacob opens up sacred opportunities with his family. He creates moments to put his blessings into words and communicates his wishes for what will happen to his body: that he be buried with his family in the family cave so that he can be gathered to his kin in all ways. The naming of this truth enables closure and peace.
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Finding the Larger Message
Dec 26, 2014 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Vayiggash
When kids in Hebrew School read the story of Joseph, he looks very good. He saves the lives of many Egyptians by storing grain in the fat years and dispensing it in the lean years. But when an adult reads the same verses, Joseph appears unscrupulous. We ask: when the hungry people come to him during the years without crops, does he have to make them sell him all their cattle? And when they come back a second time, does he have to make them sell him all their land and also offer themselves as slaves?
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A Narrative for Our Lives
Dec 26, 2014 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Vayiggash
No matter if we are philosophers, scientists, or grand viziers of Egypt, we all constantly engage in the process of slotting the 鈥渄isordered fragments of raw experience鈥� into an overarching framework.
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The Angel at the Window
Dec 23, 2014 By Lisa Gelber | Commentary | Vayehi
鈥淲hat鈥檚 an angel? It鈥檚 a star that comes down from the sky at night to peek in your window . . . to make sure you鈥檙e sleeping and give you a little kiss on the head.鈥�
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A Blessing of Reconciliation
Dec 19, 2014 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Miketz
In Parashat Miketz, the masterful Joseph, hashalit al ha鈥檃retz (the sovereign of the land) engages in a series of tests of his brothers鈥� honesty. Also at stake is the resilience of their father Jacob鈥檚 legacies.
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An Alternative Hero
Dec 19, 2014 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Miketz
Joseph, not Moses, torn apart
dreams snakes brothers father
sins and returns loves and is silent
wanders between the gleanings of Ephraim and the delight of Manasseh
Joseph knowledge Joseph pain
Joseph summer
His Father鈥檚 Son
Dec 12, 2014 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Vayeshev
We stand in a very long line of children of Israel who have been fascinated with Joseph, the first person to have stood in that line. It鈥檚 hard in 2014 to see him, like the Rabbis, as a great tzadik, even if he did resist the temptation of betraying Potiphar by sleeping with his wife; brought his brothers to teshuvah (repentance) through an elaborate and risky ruse; forgave them for selling him into slavery; and apparently administered the entire wealth of Egypt without ever profiting personally from his position. Joseph seems too worldly for the role of tzadik, too complex, too much a man of action rather than reflection.
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Living into the Mission of Our Lives
Dec 5, 2014 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Vayishlah
What are our greatest fears?
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Leah鈥檚 Song
Dec 5, 2014 By Yonatan Dahlen | Commentary | Vayishlah
When you fell in love
Under a copper sky,
I saw you with her.
Sweat on your gentle lip,
You were weeping
Like the wadi in the rainy season.
And in my dreams,
I caught your tears.
Each one
Before it could hit the dust at your sandals.
If only I could be your tear catcher.
I would swallow every star
If you told me
Your tears come from Heaven.
Reclaiming Our Dreams
Nov 28, 2014 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Vayetzei
This week鈥檚 parashah, Vayetzei, covers a critical 20-year period in the life of our patriarch Jacob: the two decades that Jacob spends outside the Land of Israel, in Haran, in the house of his conniving uncle, Laban. They are years of treachery, deceit, exploitation, and fear. They are pivotal years in Jacob鈥檚 life鈥攜ears in which Jacob confronts who he is and sees in Laban what he will become if he doesn鈥檛 pull back from the abyss. In the words of Aviva Gottlieb Zornberg, this is 鈥渢he night of [Jacob鈥檚] soul.鈥� And, as if to drive this point home, the parashah begins with the setting of the sun and the onset of night, and ends with sunrise and the beginning of a new day.
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How Full of Awe Is This Place!
Nov 28, 2014 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Vayetzei
In 1969, as a senior pursuing a BFA at the University of Memphis, my mother, Ann Kibel Schwartz, made a series of prints, including this one on themes from Genesis, as her senior thesis. She drew the images for these prints from magazines, newspapers, and print advertisements. The images were starkly modern, but their juxtaposition in collage, drawing on the ancient themes of the Torah, created an old-new whole.
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Father, Have You No Blessing Left for Me?
Nov 21, 2014 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Toledot
In Parashat Toledot, the saga of our somewhat dysfunctional ancestral family continues, and included within is one of the family鈥檚 saddest and most poignant episodes. Yitzhak, scion of the family and heir to his father鈥檚 covenant with God, has just married at the age of 40. He and his wife, Rivkah, remain childless for 20 years, when, in response to his entreaties to God, she conceives. Unlike her late mother-in-law鈥檚 easy pregnancy at an advanced age, Rivkah鈥檚 pregnancy is complicated. We are told right away that 鈥渢he children, the 鈥榮ons鈥� in fact, were struggling within her womb鈥� (Vayitrotzetzu habanim bekirbah; Gen 25:22). However, she does not know the reason for her discomfort and distress.
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Who Inherits Abraham?
Nov 14, 2014 By Rachel Rosenthal | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
It is a well-known, if vaguely uncomfortable, psychological phenomenon that when looking for a partner, people are often attracted to those who are similar to their parents in appearance and personality. It is easy to see the logic behind this; when planning our futures, we seek that which is familiar to us from our pasts. This notion is often thought of as a modern phenomenon, reflecting a time when people choose their own mates. However, closer examination dates this concept back to the Torah, starting with the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca.
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Abraham鈥檚 Search: A Hallmark of Human Grief
Nov 14, 2014 By Allison Kestenbaum | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
In an oft-told Buddhist story, a woman loses her son and is inconsolable. She approaches the Buddha and begs him to bring her son back. He instructs her to go around the village from house to house, seeking a single mustard seed from any home where no one has died. If she can find such a mustard seed, he will restore her son to life. So the woman knocks on each door and finds that there is no household that has not experienced loss. She returns without the mustard seed but with an enlarged awareness of the universality of loss that leads her to a path of compassion and peace.
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Looking Upward and Outward
Nov 7, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayera
Sight and vision play an important role in the two opening narratives of Parashat Vayera.
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An Illustration of the Binding of Isaac From the 91抖阴 Library
Nov 7, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Vayera
The Hebrew Bible in which this engraved frontispiece is found was printed in Venice in 1739 at the request of a physician named Isaac Foa. In addition to the Hebrew text, it contains Italian explanations of difficult passages. The engraver, Francesco Griselini (1717鈥�1787), illustrated many non-Jewish works as well as notable borders for megillot, and later became known for his scholarly writing on natural history.
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