How Judaism Is Like an iPhone
Aug 23, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Eikev
Since I am a self-professed 鈥渢echno-junkie,鈥� it took considerable restraint to wait the year for the second-generation iPhone to be released. Having read every review, followed its development on blogs, and waited patiently, only recently did I purchase my iPhone. Before it was in my hand I knew everything it was capable of, yet I was surprised by one aspect: its simplicity. As an Apple aficionado, I was expecting the attractive design, but after opening the box, I realized that there was one thing missing: a manual. The iPhone expects you to intuit its functions, discover its capabilities, and just use it.
Read More
Life From the Ashes
Aug 1, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Devarim | Tishah Be'av
How did Judaism manage to survive the destruction of its central sanctuary? According to the book of Deuteronomy, which we always begin to read on the Shabbat before Tish’ah Be’av, it was to be the only link between heaven and earth. All sacrifices were to be offered there and no place else. The exclusive cult restricted to a single Temple seemed to reinforce the fragile belief in a single, omnipotent God. And even if Solomon’s Temple never fully eradicated the plethora of local altars and sanctuaries, it did claim to be the repository of God’s holy name and the place where God was most readily accessible to human supplication. Yet, unwittingly, the monotheism of Solomon’s court increased the vulnerability of Israelite religion. The destruction of his Temple in 586 BCE could have ruptured the ties between God and Israel. By then the exiled tribes of the Northern Kingdom, crushed by Assyria in 721 BCE, were well on their way to oblivion.
Read More
Remembering the Holocaust on Tisha B’Av
Jul 25, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av
My father liked to record in the books he bought the date of purchase. Each book became a marker in the unfolding of his life. Though long gone, my father and I meet often on the pages of the many books from his library that are interspersed in mine. Every year at this time, I take off the shelf his slender Hebrew edition of the Order of Lamentations for Tisha b’Av to ready myself for the fast day. I never fail to be arrested by the date stamped on its first page beneath my father’s name: January 12, 1933. Hitler came to power as Germany’s Chancellor exactly 18 days later on January 30. The pall of Tisha b’Av descended in mid鈥搘inter that year and would not lift till the spring of 1945.
Read More
Being Jewish at Yale
Jun 27, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Korah
The Talmud condemns the rebellion by Korah and company against Moses as the prime example of “a controversy not for Heaven’s sake.” Tarnished by impure motives, his challenge brings no lasting benefit. And the Torah confirms that reading. Korah is a Levite bent on leveling the religious hierarchy set up by God to govern the Tabernacle. He rejects the special status accorded his clan to service the cult “You have gone too far,” he declaims to Moses. “For all the community are holy… Why then do you raise yourself above the Lord’s congregation (Numbers 163)?” Behind the facade of democratic rhetoric lurks a grab for power.
Read More
What Hands Teach Us about Religion
Jun 13, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Beha'alotekha
My father liked to study hands, not to predict the future but to judge character. An amateur graphologist, he had concluded that our hands are an even more revealing extension of our personality than our handwriting. The interest was a great ice鈥揵reaker. He would often ask guests visiting our home for the first time to show him their hands, palms down and held together in a triangle. After a brief gaze, he would offer a few comments about their personality type, talents and values. He was rarely way off. Though I failed to acquire his expertise, I remained ever sensitive to the expressiveness of hands.
Read More
Ethics in Business
May 23, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai
When in Israel last, I needed to buy a pair of tefillin as a bar鈥搈itzva gift. Deep inside Mea Shearim, my son and I finally found the shop that had been recommended to us, a hole in the wall on the main street, that specialized in tefillin. The space was musty and untidy and cluttered with religious books and artifacts. Behind the counter presided an elderly and diminutive couple, whose vigor belied their years. They bounded from one end of the counter to the other to serve an unending flow of customers.
Read More
Israel’s Destiny
May 16, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor | Lag Ba'omer
Jews mark the period between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot by the counting of the omer. For a period of 49 days, beginning on 16 Nisan, for us in the diaspora the night of the second Seder, we count each day at the evening service (the start of a new day in the Jewish calendar) in terms of the days and weeks that have passed. This brief ceremony opens with the verse in this week’s parasha that sets forth the prescription: “And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation 鈥� the day after the sabbath 鈥� you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week 鈥� fifty days (Leviticus 23:15鈥�16).”
Read MoreSacred Distinctions
Apr 28, 1998 By Diane Sharon | Commentary | Shemini
This week’s parashah is overflowing with mystery鈥攆irst, in Leviticus 10, the sudden deaths of Aaron’s sons in the very midst of dedicating the Mishkan and the Aaronid priesthood to its service, and then, in chapter 11, the extensive categories of clean and unclean animals that may or may not be eaten. Both of these texts stand as a challenge to the notion of a rational religion, to the idea that God is reasonable, a divinity who may be predicted, and also to the idea that the way to worship God, the way to live a sacred life, is based on logical premises. In spite of these challenges, the history of interpretation of this parashah shows a striving for the rational. On the deaths of Aaron’s sons, Rashi cites rabbinic efforts to identify the sins that Nadab and Abihu must have committed that would warrant their incendiary punishment鈥攖hese differ widely, emphasizing the elliptical nature of this text. And on the food prohibitions, Maimondies, known as Rambam, the twelth-century neo-classical philosopher who is known for his rational approach to Judaism, read into the food laws of Leviticus a logical underpinning based on sound hygiene.
Read More