91快活林

Full Stomachs, Forgetful Hearts

Jul 31, 2026 By Benjamin Mann | Commentary | Eikev

It is a good day when I happen upon the elementary school students at the Schechter School of Long Island while they are singing birkat hamazon, the traditional Jewish blessings after a meal. The kids sing the blessings with gusto, and being with them is a sweet perk of my role as Head of School. […]

The Hidden Meaning of the Shema

Jul 24, 2026 By Chancellor Mike Uram | Commentary | Va'et-hannan

There is a story about a rabbi who traveled through Europe after the Holocaust searching for Jewish children hidden in churches during the war. In one Catholic orphanage, the priest assured him there were none. The rabbi did not believe him but had no way to prove it. So he asked to watch the sisters put the children to bed that night, just to see how they were cared for. The priest agreed. As the nuns tucked the children in, the rabbi stood in the doorway and began to sing the Shema. Several of the children immediately began to cry for their parents, revealing that they were, in fact, Jewish. The story may be apocryphal, but it highlights just how foundational the Shema is to Jewish consciousness.

The Whole Journey

Jul 10, 2026 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

School has ended, and with it comes a familiar flood of feelings. As my own children close out another year, I feel grateful and a little sad, eager for the summer and already nostalgic for the days that just were. My family lives in Israel, where this year those feelings have been especially layered.Transitions press us up against the fullness of what has been, even as they pull us toward what is coming.

This is exactly where B鈥檔ei Yisrael finds themselves at the opening of Matot-Masei. With forty years of wandering behind them and the land of Canaan visible across the Jordan, they stand at a great threshold. And it is at precisely this moment that the Torah pauses, looks backward, and does something unexpected:

Pinehas and the Three Weeks

Jul 3, 2026 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Pinehas | Tishah Be'av

Most years, Parashat Pinehas is read near the beginning of the Three Weeks. While the timing before or after the Seventeenth of Tammuz shifts, the proximity is worth noticing. This minor fast day commemorates the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls before the destruction of the Second Temple, marks the beginning of the traditional period of mourning that culminates on Tish鈥榓h Be-Av. Both the parashah and the season that follow are unusually concerned with numbers. Pinehas features a wide range of narratives including the reward granted to Pinehas, the daughters of Zelophehad, and the appointment of Joshua as Moses’ successor. Yet counting appears again and again. A census records the size of the tribes. The inheritance laws depend upon the distribution of land among those tribes. By the end of the parashah, the Torah has turned almost entirely to the calendar, laying out the offerings for Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals.

Who Sees the Truth, and Who Speaks It?

Jun 26, 2026 By Loraine Enlow | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

Long-time New York subway riders are familiar with the slogan, 鈥淪ee something, say something.鈥� Balaam鈥檚 story in this week鈥檚 parashah is closer to: 鈥淪ay something, because you didn鈥檛 see something.鈥� After all, 鈥淪ee something, say something鈥� assumes that the hard part is speaking up, but Parashat Balak suggests the hardest part may be noticing at all, especially when Balaam, the professional seer, can鈥檛 see the angel in the road that his donkey does. This reversal of who notices (and who misses what鈥檚 right in front of them) is what draws me into this passage. As a scholar working primarily on medieval Jewish and Christian biblical commentaries, I鈥檓 especially interested in noticing how texts travel, how communities guard them, and how outsiders can sometimes help shed light on a tradition. Biblical interpretation is itself, in a sense, the discipline of noticing 鈥榓ngels in the road,鈥� learning to see what is already present right in front of you in the text.

When a Question Threatens

Jun 19, 2026 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Korah

In this week鈥檚 parashah, Korah organizes a group of two hundred and fifty well-respected people to protest Moses and Aaron鈥檚 leadership. 鈥淵ou have gone too far,鈥� Korah and his group announce. 鈥淔or all the community is holy, all of them, and God is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourself above God鈥檚 congregation?鈥� (Num. 16:3). Moses is appalled, God is furious, and in response, the earth opens up and swallows the protesters, their households, and all their possessions. What are we as readers to make of this episode? Do we attempt to creatively rehabilitate Korah, despite his divine punishment, as an example of those who bravely attempt to speak truth to power? Or do we side with Moses and try to figure out why Korah must have truly deserved what he got?

Grapes of Canaan

Jun 12, 2026 By Achia Anzi | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

The spies鈥� illustration epitomizes the power of images but also their hermeneutic limitations. Of the complex story that Parashat Shelach Lekha relates concisely, the grapes are a central motif in the visual tradition that illustrates it. For a biblical story to become an image, the artist must focus not only on the sayable but also the seeable. Hence, throughout history, images have often been presented alongside words. For example, the ancient mosaic from the Huqoq Synagogue depicts the two spies, along with the inscription 鈥溩懽炞曌� 讘砖谞讬讬诐鈥�.[2

Independence Day

Jun 5, 2026 By Emmanuel Bloch | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

In Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm argued that freedom is not merely liberation from external constraints (鈥渇reedom from鈥�) but also entails the capacity for self-realization and responsible action (鈥渇reedom to鈥�). One of the most puzzling passages in Beha-alotekha reflects a similar insight.

Barefoot and Backwards Levites

May 29, 2026 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Naso

Towards the end of Parashat Bemidbar, God commands Aaron and Moses to undertake a census of the Levitical clans (Numbers 4:2). They begin the census with the Kohathites, which is odd for three reasons:

(1) Elsewhere the Levites are listed in birth order鈥擥ershon, Kohath, Merari (Genesis 46:11, Numbers 3:17)鈥攂ut here Kohath is given priority.

(2) The Kohathites are set apart from the other two clans by the division between Parashat Bemidbar and Parashat Naso, the latter of which begins with the enumeration of the other two clans.

(3) The labor assigned to the Kohathites is described, without elaboration, as 鈥淢ost Holy鈥� (Numbers 4:4). Rashi explicates this as responsibility for the 鈥渢he ark, the table, the candelabrum, the altars, the curtain, and the accompanying vessels.鈥�

We Were All Converts at Sinai

May 22, 2026 By David C. Kraemer | Commentary | Shavuot

One of the few age-old rituals that distinguishes the holiday of Shavuot is the public reading of the Book of Ruth. The reason for this association may be no more than that the narrative of Ruth describes its events as taking place 鈥渁t the beginning of the barley harvest鈥� (1:22), that is to say, at the time of Shavuot. But there is another association, deeper and more fundamental, that ties Ruth to Shavuot in instructive and inspiring ways.

How Do You Measure a Year?

May 15, 2026 By Rabbi Abigail Treu | Commentary | Bemidbar

鈥淔ive hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?鈥�

The question asked in the chorus of 鈥淪easons of Love,鈥� made ever more poignant by the tragic death of its composer-lyricist, Jonathan D. Larson, just months before Rent opened on Broadway in 1996, has been rattling lately in my mind. After all, we are doing an awful lot of counting this week: we count the final days of the Omer, and, as our parashah begins, take the census of the Israelite community. What does all of this counting have to do with the ways in which we measure what really matters?

Remember the Land

May 8, 2026 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Spring is my favorite season because it draws me outdoors, enticing me to leave the city and enjoy the rivers, fields, and mountains of this glorious earth. Even near the city I often find myself in nature, biking along the Hudson and up the Palisades past waterfalls and nesting eagles. Returning to the land reminds me of the many blessings of our world, filling me with gratitude and awe. It also causes foreboding since the signs of stress on the natural systems that make our lives possible are everywhere evident. While this era of anthropogenic climate change may be new, the concern that human conduct could lead to ruin and exile from the earth is found already in our Torah portion.

Holy Frustration

May 1, 2026 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Emor

Like much of Leviticus, Parashat Emor opens with yet more of these rules. But now the Torah needs to acknowledge that even when everything is in the right place, there is still death. What鈥檚 a priest to do when tragedy strikes? 鈥淪peak [Emor] to the priests, the sons of Aaron,鈥� God tells Moses, 鈥渁nd say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him鈥� (Lev. 21:1). In order to stay pure, priests are limited in terms of when they can come near a dead body; even though they may mourn the death of another, the Torah says that they can only be near the corpse of a close relative. After a few terse verses about mourning practices, the Torah enumerates further rules that are meant to keep the priests and High Priest pure, with the upshot being that a priest is 鈥渉oly to their God鈥� (21:7).

How to Be Holy

Apr 24, 2026 By Raymond Scheindlin | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim

This week, we read two parashiyot from Leviticus: Aharei Mot andKedoshim. Taken together, they cover five clearly defined topics. Aharei Mot deals with the rituals of the high priest on Yom Kippur; regulations governing the slaughter of animals for food and sacrifice; and the prohibition of various sexual relations, especially incest. This last subject is resumed at the end ofKedoshim. Between the two discussions of sexual relations is the famousChapter 19, which opensKedoshim. This chapter stands out from the rest of our double parashah鈥攊n fact, from the rest of the book of Leviticus. It is a reprieve from the seemingly endless ritual instructions, most of which are no longer applicable, that make up the bulk of the book; and, thoughChapter 19does include some important ritual instructions, it is mostly devoted to the kind of rules for life that should govern every well-organized society, rules that people of most cultures and religions have tried to inculcate for everyone鈥檚 benefit.

Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Apr 17, 2026 By Joy Ladin | Commentary | Metzora | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh | Tazria

Most benei mitzvah would do anything to avoid having to talk aboutParashat Tazria-Metzora, a section of theTorah that focuses communal attention on intimate changes in human bodies. InLeviticus 13, God orders Israelites to notice and monitor intimate changes in one another鈥檚 bodies鈥攎enstruation, discharges, eruptions, inflammations, hair growth, 鈥渟welling, rash, discoloration,鈥� and so on. For example,Leviticus 13:2commands:

The Deathly Power of the Holy

Apr 10, 2026 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Shemini

Finding the right words after loss is hard, but Moses鈥檚 comments to Aaron in this week鈥檚 parashah are unusually difficult. At the moment that God fills Aaron鈥檚 hands with abundance, appointing him as high-priest and his descendants as an eternal priesthood, his two eldest die when they attempt to offer incense with a flame brought from outside the newly dedicated sanctuary鈥攁 strange, uncommanded offering. 鈥淎nd fire came forth from the LORD and consumed them . . .鈥�

Freedom through Torah

Apr 3, 2026 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah

Freedom in biblical and rabbinic Judaism is a highly complex idea. Consider the mishnah above. At first glance one might think the law, the Ten Commandments carved on the two tablets, would be limiting, constraining human freedom. Counterintuitively, the Sages argue that true freedom only comes from an engagement with Torah! How might 鈥渓aboring in Torah鈥� and living a life according to the demands of the Torah induce freedom?

Elijah鈥攁nd Santa Claus?!

Mar 27, 2026 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol

I am certain that I am not the first to point out the similarities between the figures of Elijah the Prophet and Santa Claus鈥�at least in the way those figures have been popularly imagined. Put simply, folklore posits that each of these figures visits individual homes on a religious holiday (Elijah鈥攖hat old shikkur!鈥攕neaks in to […]

A Covenant of Salt

Mar 20, 2026 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Vayikra

Covenant is a central concept in Judaism. The Torah and later tradition make clear that the people Israel have a special relationship with God, and Jews have acquired the epithet 鈥渢he chosen people鈥� (though Jewish particularism need not preclude other peoples having their own unique relationships with God). Rabbi David Hartman,z鈥漧, titled his exposition of Jewish theologyA Living Covenant. Rabbi David Wolpe, in a speech at 91快活林,proposedhighlighting the mainstream ideological approach of Conservative Judaism by rebranding it as 鈥淐ovenantal Judaism.鈥�

The Give and Take of Strength

Mar 13, 2026 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Pekudei | Shabbat Hahodesh | Vayak-hel

Rituals of closure are common in both the secular and religious realms. An example of the first is the sounding of retreat and the lowering of the flag marking the end of the official duty day on military installations. An instance of the second is thesiyyum,a liturgical ritual and festive meal that is occasioned by the completion of the study of a Talmudic tractate. Closure rituals relate not only to the past but to the future as well. On the one hand, the temporal demarcation of a past event facilitates the emergence of its distinct identity, internal coherence, and significance, thereby providing insight, understanding, and, at times, a sense of accomplishment. At the same time, by declaring an end, a closure ritual creates space in which one can鈥攁nd must鈥攂egin anew; the past is to be neither prison nor refuge.