Finding Our Way (and God鈥檚) in the World

Nov 21, 2025 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot

What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. When as a girl she sees a stranger at the well, she rushes to water his caravan of thirsty camels, and then invites him to stay at her house. When offered the chance to travel with this man back to a distant land and a mysterious husband, she volunteers without hesitation. When her pregnancy becomes difficult, she seeks out God and challenges God with the bold question, 鈥淲hy do I need this?鈥� When her husband seems ready to bless the wrong son, she quickly conspires to rearrange the action so that Jacob will receive the primary blessing. In all of these actions, Rebecca is seen as a woman of strength and decisiveness.

Death and Dignity

Nov 14, 2025 By Gordon Tucker | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah

Parashat Hayyei Sarah begins with the death of the matriarch Sarah. Interestingly, it is the first time that a death enters into the Torah鈥檚 narrative. In all of the genealogies from Adam and Eve through the lives of Abraham and Sarah, deaths were matter-of-factly recorded with the simple word 讜讬诪转. And of course, there was the global death and destruction during the Flood. But the death of Sarah is the first one that generates a story, and a template, as it were, for how to deal with death鈥攂urial, eulogizing, mourning, and the subsequent continuation of life.

Claiming Our Ancestors: The Case of Terah

Oct 31, 2025 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Lekh Lekha

For all of us, there is no going without leaving; and so it was for Abraham: 鈥淕o forth聽from聽your land, your birthplace, and the house of your father聽to聽the land that I shall show you鈥澛�(Gen. 12:1) [emphasis added]. And when we leave places, we leave people as well. When Abraham departed for Canaan he left behind, among others, his father Terah. And it was always thus: 鈥淭herefore shall a man leave his father and mother鈥� (2:24).

Species Purity and the Great Flood

Oct 24, 2025 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Noah

Omnicide is a dramatic move, on that we can all agree. But what causes the Creator to grow violently disgusted with the creatures that had just recently been praised as 鈥済ood鈥� and blessed with fertility? JTS Bible Professor Emeritus Alan Cooper has suggested that it was interspecies breeding of human women with divine creatures that angered God, and that it was Noah鈥檚 pure genealogy (鈥減erfect in his generations鈥�) that set him apart for salvation. The ancient Rabbis had a similar idea鈥攊t was crossbreeding between species that angered God and caused God to reboot with specimens that were still arranged 鈥渁ccording to their families鈥� (Gen. 8:19; see Midrash Tanhuma, Buber ed., Noah 11).

Impermanence, Empathy, and the Shadow of Faith

Oct 10, 2025 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Sukkot

It can feel odd that just as it begins to get chilly, and just after the long High Holiday prayers may have left us wanting to simply stay home, we must go outside to sit in the sukkah鈥攁n impermanent dwelling that brings us closer to the elements. And it may seem odd that precisely at this moment of impermanence, the Jewish tradition places extra significance on the welcoming in of guests鈥攈akhnasat orhim. Why is it that that we must now enter a place of discomfort? And why is it that we must be extra careful to welcome in guests at this time? In order to answer these questions, we can turn to the representation of Sukkot and its rituals in the Jewish mystical tradition, beginning with the Zohar.

Our Very Life

Oct 3, 2025 By Lilly Kaufman | Commentary | Ha'azinu

At the end of his life, with Joshua by his side, Moses begins his great, thunderous poem, Ha鈥檃zinu, summoning the heavens and the earth as witnesses to his powerful, angry聽message, as God commanded him to do in the preceding parashah, Vayelekh. And yet, in a one-verse聽reshut, a prayerful, wishful intention, preceding the central portion of his sermonic poem, he聽says that he wants聽his words to land lightly: 鈥淢ay my discourse come down as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like showers on young growth, like droplets on the grass鈥澛�(Deut. 32:2). Then suddenly, the聽central聽angry theme聽emerges, and he calls the people 鈥渦nworthy of [God], crooked, perverse鈥� (32:5), 鈥渄ull and witless鈥� (32:6).聽

The Meaning of Kol Nidre: Human Frailty, Inclusive Community, and the Gravity of Words

Sep 26, 2025 By Shira Billet | Commentary | Yom Kippur

The Kol Nidre service, with its solemn choreography and somber traditional melody,[1] ushers in Yom Kippur with a sobering reminder of the gravity of speech and the importance of honoring our words, setting the tone for a long day of fasting, repentance, and communal prayer.

When Teshuvah Feels Impossible

Sep 19, 2025 By Noam Blauer | Nitzavim | Rosh Hashanah

Are we really being set up for success for this whole teshuvah business? We might commit to doing all the preparation鈥攋ournaling, going to shul, talking to therapists, chatting with rabbis, calling up hurt family and friends, New Year鈥檚 resolutions, etc.鈥攁nd it still feels inadequate. Am I actually morally transformed? I am some infinitesimally small fraction of a hypermodern, global, complex network. My actions bear consequences for people on the other side of the globe I will never meet and whose names I will never even know. I still need to bring teshuvah to bear on my most intimate relationships, 聽but is this millennia-old process suitable to the messiness and uncertainty of modern moral life?

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