Bacon in the Season of Repentance
Jul 31, 2013 By Charlie Schwartz | Commentary | Re'eh
As it becomes clear that living and dealing with 鈥渂acon mania鈥� is part of early 21st-century life in the United States, now is a good time to reflect on the Jewish prohibition of eating pork, which appears in this week鈥檚 parashah.
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Roads to Nonviolence
Aug 7, 2013 By Ofra Arieli Backenroth | Commentary | Shofetim
Is there a way to wage war in a humane way?
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We Have Met the Enemy, and the Enemy Is Us
Aug 14, 2013 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Ki Tetzei
How does war affect the human soul? Our Torah portion, Ki Tetzei, begins with a verse that raises these issues in a stark and discomfiting manner.
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To What Shall We Return?
Aug 28, 2013 By Lisa Gelber | Commentary | Nitzavim | Vayeilekh
As we engage in teshuvah, (re)turning to the deep, soulful place hidden beneath the barriers we erect for others and ourselves, we must ask ourselves to what we are returning and how that relocation will manifest itself in our lives.
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Face to Face
Nov 24, 2015 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Vayishlah
The tortured relationship between the twin brothers Esau and Jacob has been a significant element in the two previous parshiyot鈥擳oledot and Vayetze. It is resolved in this week鈥檚 parashah, Vayishlah. Although there is no peace treaty, the resolution is deeply desired by both brothers and reflected both in the undoing of the language that started the problem and in the brothers鈥� truly seeing and acknowledging each other.
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Family
Nov 18, 2015 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Vayetzei
This week鈥檚 Torah reading, Vayetzei (Genesis 28:10-32:2), opens and closes with flights of angels accompanying our forefather Jacob (aka Israel, though, he won鈥檛 get named that until next week), as he flees from and returns to the Promised Land. When Jacob leaves, he is running in fear for his life. For our father Jacob has cheated his macho older brother Esau once too often, so much so that he has threatened to kill him. Of course, Esau isn鈥檛 that much older, for the two brothers are twins. But as any set of twins will tell you, the one who came first, even if by mere seconds鈥攖hat one is the elder. We might assume, along with the Bible, that birth-order matters. But Genesis is all about the younger supplanting the older and we are on solid ground suggesting that this sibling rivalry stuff is at the very heart of this week鈥檚 Torah lesson.
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Giving Blessings on a Full Stomach
Nov 13, 2015 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
Some stories are rich with visual imagery, while others resound with song. But it is fragrance, specifically the smell of savory food, which infuses Parashat Toledot. Food plays an essential role in several pivotal scenes. It is with a pot of lentil stew that Jacob purchases Esau鈥檚 birthright, and it is with a steak dinner that he secures the senior blessing from his father. The first story is simple鈥擡sau is famished and ready to trade away anything for a bowl of soup. But the second story is enormously complex.
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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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