Love and Covenant
Nov 6, 2015 By Blu Greenberg | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
In the mid-90s, Bill Moyers of the eponymous television show invited viewers to watch Genesis: A Living Conversation, the 10 part series he conducted with Bible scholars, writers, psychologists, lawyers, artists, and communal and religious leaders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The invitation frontispiece read: 鈥淩ape, fratricide, jealously, temptation, fear, rage, murder . . . Welcome to Genesis.鈥� Moyers was capturing the powerful 鈥渇lawed models鈥� nature of biblical heroes that make them eternally accessible and the inescapable truth about the human capacity for evil: 鈥淎nd the heart of man is evil. . . from his youth.鈥� (Gen. 6:5)
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Ultimate Values and the Akedah Story
Oct 30, 2015 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Vayera
Can there be anything left to say about the Akedah, perhaps the most discussed and analyzed story in the Torah? Clearly if this were simply the story of an old man who hears voices and travels to a nearby mountain with his son in order to kill him there, and who, at the last moment, sees a ram and kills it instead, we would not still be fascinated talking about the story more than two millennia later. No, this is an allegory. . . and therein lies it survival and its power, and our task is to find meaning in the story for ourselves and for our lives.
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A Lesson for Abraham
Oct 23, 2015 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Lekh Lekha
Lekh Lekha was the first parashah I ever learned. As kids in Hebrew school, we were not taught Bereishit or Noah, probably because of the theological questions they would raise. We began Bible study with Lekh Lekha. I am happy to return to it as an adult and try to understand its message anew.
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Before the Deluge
Oct 16, 2015 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Noah
Parashat Noah raises difficult questions about the relationships between the natural world, humanity鈥檚 morality, and God鈥檚 justice.
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An Anthology of Beginnings
Oct 9, 2015 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Bereishit
鈥淚n the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.鈥� These opening words of the Torah in most translations are clear, straightforward, and well known. But they don鈥檛 render the Hebrew original correctly. As Rashi already pointed out, the first verse of the Torah is not, by itself, a grammatical sentence. Instead, it is part of a longer sentence that continues through the end of verse three.
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Grief in a Time of Joy
Oct 2, 2015 By Alex Braver | Commentary | Sukkot
My mother was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia the day before Erev Rosh Hashanah last year. Through the Days of Awe we discussed her genetic profile, her symptoms, bone marrow transplants, and chemotherapy. We approached Hanukkah unsure of what was working and what wasn鈥檛. She died on Purim.
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The Ending That Wasn’t
Sep 25, 2015 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Ha'azinu
We Jews are not a religious lot. In fact, by a variety of metrics cited in the recent Pew report, Jews are less religious than any other religious group in America. For instance, only one quarter of Jews say religion is 鈥渧ery important鈥� in their lives, compared with more than half of Americans overall. More to the point that I鈥檇 like to explore, a belief in God is much more common among the general non-黑料社 public than among Jews.
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Safe in God鈥檚 Memory
Sep 11, 2015 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Nitzavim | Rosh Hashanah
This week鈥檚 Torah portion, Nitzavim, contains stunningly beautiful verses that teach us that God鈥檚 Torah 鈥渋s very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it鈥� (Deut. 30:14). The language of the verses is full of rich, physical imagery, 鈥淚t is not in the heavens, that you should say, 鈥榃ho among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?鈥欌�� The Torah, the wisdom, is not far away, is not other. It is in our hearts. If we give our hearts space to be known and embraced, our hearts can share the wisdom that dwells inside. With this space, the wisdom of Torah emerges in new ways. It is not general; it is very specific to each person, to the challenges and blessings that he or she has encountered in his or her life.
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