91快活林

Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Apr 28, 2017 By Joy Ladin | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

The idea that others would examine and report on intimate details of our bodies鈥攖hat such things would be of communal concern, and subject us to institutional regulation鈥攎ay seem archaic. But as transgender people know, when it comes to gender, this kind of surveillance is alive and well.

Guarding Our Tongues

Apr 28, 2017 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Metzora | Tazria

Becoming is better than being.

鈥擟arol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

This week鈥檚 parashah discusses 迟锄补谤补鈥檃迟, a skin disease understood in rabbinic tradition as punishment for lashon hara, evil speech. The public castigation that the metzora suffers is a powerful warning for us to 鈥済uard our tongues.鈥� It was with words that God created the world, and our words have potential to build, create, and sustain life and human dignity, or to be a source of pain and destruction.

Making Meat

Apr 21, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Shemini

Dr. Mark Post of the University of Maastricht stunned the world several summers ago by producing the most expensive burger in history. Working from stem cells taken from a live cow, his team cultured muscle tissue that they then turned into an edible product resembling ground beef. Amongst all the specifications for kosher animals in this week鈥檚 parashah, lab-grown meat is unsurprisingly absent. Jews therefore want to know鈥攊s it kosher? Could it even be pareve?

A Love That Transforms

Apr 21, 2017 By Leonard A. Sharzer | Commentary | Shemini

This week鈥檚 parashah includes the tragic story of Nadav and Avihu, Aaron鈥檚 two eldest sons, who died, consumed by divine fire, after bringing an offering of alien fire within the sacred precincts of the Mishkan. Considering the dramatic nature of the narrative, and its compelling pathos, the story is told with remarkable terseness.

Another Passover Season

Apr 14, 2017 By Ruth Messinger | Commentary | Pesah

As we come, again, to the end of another Passover season, many of us are looking forward to moving beyond the matzah intensity. We are obliged, also, to ask ourselves what it means to have retold the story of our people鈥檚 quest for freedom, what new insights we might have gained, what the lessons are that we should take back into the world. I want to talk about our commitment to fight oppression as it manifests itself today in our lives and in the lives of others, and I want to make some observations about the roles there are to play in these struggles, about what we can learn about how to lead in these endeavors.

A Scroll of The Song of Songs

Apr 14, 2017 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Pesah

This decorated scroll of Shir Hashirim (which is read on the Shabbat of Pesah) is a product of the circle of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, dated to circa 1930, though the scribe and artist are unidentified. The artistic movement associated with this school was informed by the Zionist ideals of the society in which it was immersed.

Retelling the Story

Apr 7, 2017 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah

Here鈥檚 a fifth question to ask at the seder this year, in addition to the usual four鈥攁 question likely to provoke discussion about the meaning of Passover that is especially timely in April 2017.

Why on all other nights (and days too) do we recall the Exodus from Egypt, but on this night, which is dedicated to the telling of that story, the Haggadah says little about what actually happened at the Exodus, and how it happened?

Two New Tunes for the Seder

Apr 7, 2017 By Nancy Abramson | Commentary | Shabbat Hagadol | Pesah

I have fond memories of my grandfather at the head of the table, chanting the Haggadah straight through in Hebrew. My grandmother, mother, and aunts would be busy in the kitchen while all of us kids were fidgeting, waiting for our cue to sing Mah Nishtanah, the Four Questions. The night of the first seder was always magical for me, and still is, as I try to infuse the tradition with contemporary ideas and some new melodies.

The Freshest Grain

Mar 31, 2017 By Ofra Arieli Backenroth | Commentary | Vayikra | Shavuot

In a long narrative dedicated to sacrifices we find one hidden command to offer only the freshest and best grains, mixed with oils and scents. Through a multi sensory description the reader can sense the heavy kernels of grains, smell the scents, and vicariously participate in the powerful event of giving thanks to God with the offering of the first fruit.

The Rituals that Make a Nation

Mar 31, 2017 By Hillel Gruenberg | Commentary | Vayikra

I must confess that as someone who has spent most of my adult life studying and teaching modern history, Vayikra鈥攂oth the parashah and the sefer鈥攊s not my favorite portion of the Torah or the Tanakh. We lovers of narrative are in for something of a letdown as we enter a biblical book that, aside from a few brief interludes, seems to be a long list of injunctions relating to priestly service and ritual purity. Indeed, there will be no more sea-splitting or plague-wreaking; the tablets have been given; the golden calf has been wrought and unwrought; and the Mishkan has been planned, plotted, and built. The fun is over, and now it鈥檚 time to talk about the particulars of sacrifice, ceremony, and the sacred.

The Sanctuary and the Bomb

Mar 24, 2017 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

The US gave the codename 鈥淚vy Mike鈥� to its first full-scale experimental thermonuclear device. Designed by of two the century鈥檚 most significant nuclear scientists, Stanis艂aw Ulam and Edward Teller, Mike鈥檚 design was a strangely beautiful one. As historian Richard Rhodes wrote in Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb: 鈥淪teel, lead, waxy polyethylene, purple-black uranium, gold leaf, copper, stainless steel, plutonium, a breath of tritium, silvery deuterium effervescent as a sea wake: Mike was a temple, tragically solomonic, invoking the powers that fire the sun.鈥�

Wonderment and Order: A Path to the Heart

Mar 24, 2017 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Pekudei | Vayak-hel

The Baal Shem Tov posed a question about Parashat Pekudei that I too find most puzzling. Why are we told over and over again鈥�10 times in the course of Exodus chapters 39鈥�40, by my count, in addition to a declaration at the start of Parashat Vayak-hel (35:4)鈥攖hat the Israelites did all they did for the Tabernacle, gave what they gave, built what they built, 鈥渁s the Lord had commanded Moses.鈥� Why not just tell us once, at the end of the account, that all they did was done in this way, for this purpose? 

Is It Right?

Mar 17, 2017 By Yehudah Webster | Commentary | Ki Tissa

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular鈥攂ut one must take it simply because it is right.

鈥擠r. Martin Luther King Jr., 鈥淎 Proper Sense of Priorities鈥�

Doing Shabbat, Together

Mar 17, 2017 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Ki Tissa

Following the instructions for preparing incense for future offerings, six verses speak of the Sabbath (Exod. 31: 13-18). Two of them appear in our siddur and are sung in most synagogues on Friday night and Shabbat morning (vv. 16-17). Probably because the words are so familiar, I have tended to overlook their precise meaning.

The Performance of Memory

Mar 10, 2017 By Avinoam Patt | Commentary | Shabbat Zakhor | Purim

On the Shabbat before Purim the maftir Torah reading includes the following verses:

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt … you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it. (Deut. 25:17-19)

Because of this reading it is called Shabbat Zakhor (Remember). The verses recited in Deuteronomy are in effect already a remembering of what Amalek did shortly after the flight from Egypt.

The Poet as High Priest

Mar 10, 2017 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Tetzavveh

Robert Browning, the Victorian poet, puzzled many of his readers when he called one of his collections Bells and Pomegranates. The issue wasn鈥檛 that he invoked a biblical type; many poets preceding him had seen themselves in prophetic terms. They were heroic figures whose imaginative powers could transform the world; they spoke truths to inspire others and change society. But what did the design on the hem of the priestly garment (Exod. 28:33-35) have to do with poetry? The poet as High Priest, a figure associated with rules and ritual rather than creativity and imagination, seemed counterintuitive.

A Symbol of Peace

Mar 3, 2017 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Terumah

The Arch of Titus in Rome is simultaneously one of the saddest and most exciting places for a Jew to stand. It is but a short distance from the Colosseum, the stadium made famous by its cruel sports, built with money plundered from the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. Titus鈥檚 Arch celebrates the destruction of our Temple, a building designated by Isaiah to be a house of prayer for all nations. A bas-relief sculpture on the arch鈥檚 inner walls depicts a sickening scene: the triumphant display of the Temple鈥檚 sacred objects, the Menorah most prominent among them, along with a pathetic procession of enslaved Jews.

Building the Mishkan in Medieval Catalonia

Mar 3, 2017 By Ariel Fein | Commentary | Terumah

Like a contract between artist and patron, Parashat Terumah details God鈥檚 commission of the construction of the Tabernacle 鈥攁 task ultimately carried out by Bezalel, 鈥渨ho was filled with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge of all manner of workmanship鈥� (Exod. 31:2-3). A combination of God鈥檚 commandment and Bezalel鈥檚 artistic vision, the Tabernacle exemplifies divine creation through human mediation.

Expanding Our Understanding of the Religious Life

Feb 24, 2017 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Mishpatim

There is a strange鈥攍ittle spoken about鈥攍aw that my mind, particularly over the last few months, keeps revisiting. The Talmud teaches that when one builds a synagogue or house of study the structure should preferably have windows (BT Berakhot 34b). Indeed, this idea is codified as law in the foundational legal code, the Shulhan Arukh (OH 90:2).

Taking Care of Ourselves and the Stranger

Feb 24, 2017 By David Rosenn | Commentary | Mishpatim

This week鈥檚 Torah reading contains instructions for taking care of one鈥檚 own: 鈥淚f you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them like a creditor; exact no interest from them鈥� (Exod. 22:25).

Deuteronomy is even clearer, stating, 鈥淵ou shall not charge interest on loans to your countrymen, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. But you may charge interest to a foreigner…鈥� (23:20-21).