Lech L'cha

Genesis 12:1−17:27

Abram and God's Mutual Faith

As Abram and God demonstrate, Judaism understands faith as deep trust despite doubt, confusion, and suffering.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson on MyJewishLearning.com

At a ripe old age, Abram receives a message from God, telling him that he will yet produce an heir, and that the child will inherit not only Abram's property, but also his father's covenant with God.

Surely God's promise would strain the credulity of even the most devoted follower. Sarah had been barren throughout her life. Now, her body no longer surged with the monthly cycle of women--childbearing wasn't even a possibility. And she herself testified that her husband was far too old to father children. Yet, despite biological reality, God tells Abram that he will have a child, and that his descendants will outnumber the stars in the sky!

In response to God's astounding promise, the Torah states simply that "because he put his trust in the Lord, he reckoned it to his credit." In that one ambiguous sentence, the Torah contrasts the rich complexity of biblical faith and the flimsy superficiality of the contemporary notion of faith.
American Definition

For most religious Americans, "faith" means belief in certain claims about the metaphysics of reality. Faith is perceived as a mental acceptance, a lack of doubt. Accordingly, true faith requires a willingness to refrain from too much thought, to ignore the difficult questions which life inevitably raises. And, as a result, when those questions do arise--as indeed they must--this faulty "faith" is often destroyed in its wake.

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Rosh Chodesh 2, Noah

Genesis 6:9−11:32

God Of Jews, God Of Humanity

The seven Noahide commandments mediate God's love for all of humanity and God's unique relationship with the Jewish people.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson. Provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, which ordains Conservative rabbis at the University of Judaism.The following article is reprinted with permission from the American Jewish University on MyJewishLearning.com.

Is Judaism a particularistic religion, concerned only with the well-being and sanctity of the Jewish People, or is it also one of the universalistic faiths, expressing a concern for all humanity in every region of the globe? To the enemies of our people, Judaism is portrayed as a narrow, legalistic and particularistic religion.  By focusing on the Chosen People--defined as the Jews--and their needs to the exclusion of everyone else's, Judaism seems to show an indifference to the rest of the world.

By its own admission, Judaism doesn't actively try to seek out converts--those who are attracted to our ways are welcome, but there is no burning drive to "Get the word out."

The God of the Bible is one who liberates the Jews from slavery, who gives them a path of life, who provides them with a Promised Land.  Doesn't that focus make everyone else peripheral, indeed negligible?

On the other hand, the God of the Bible is also the Creator of the Universe, the planet Earth, and all that it contains.  The Bible explicitly speaks of God's covenants with other people too--the Assyrians and the Egyptians to name just two.

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B'reishit

Genesis 1:1−6:8

The Two Creation Stories

An attempt to reconcile two opposing views of nature.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch; Reprinted from MyJewishLearning.com with permission from the website of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The opening chapter of a book is often the last to be written.

At the outset, the author may still lack a clear vision of the whole. Writing is the final stage of thinking, and many a change in order, emphasis, and interpretation is the product of wrestling with an unruly body of material. Only after all is in place does it become apparent what kind of introduction the work calls for.

I often think that is how the Torah came to open with its austere and majestic portrait of the creation of the cosmos. An act of hindsight appended a second account of creation. One, in the form of chapter two--which begins more narrowly with the history of the earth and its first human inhabitants--would surely have been sufficient, especially since it argues graphically that evil springs from human weakness. All else is really quite secondary.

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Chol HaMo-eid Sukkot

 Exodus 33:12–34:26 & Numbers 29:23-31

This week's commentary was written by Dr. Alan Cooper, Elaine Ravich Professor of Jewish Studies and provost, JTS.   From 2010/5771


Last month, an op-ed appeared in the New York Times under the title "Aw, Wilderness!"—an obvious play on Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" While O'Neill's "wilderness" was a town in Connecticut, the op-ed was about the real thing, recalling the sad incident of a skier who got lost on a trail in northern Minnesota and died of exposure. In response, the Forest Service installed markers along the trail, but when the time came to replace them the agency refused to do so, claiming that the signs violated the 1964 Wilderness Act.

The article went on to discuss the problematic balance between preserving wilderness areas and providing safe access to them. An interpretation of the Wilderness Act tilted in favor of preservation led to the banning not only of signs, but also of vehicles and tools that might facilitate access and improve safety. "As a result," the author observed, "the agencies have made . . . supposedly open recreational areas inaccessible and even dangerous, putting themselves in opposition to healthy and environmentally sound human-powered activities, the very thing Congress intended the Wilderness Act to promote."

In response to the article, one correspondent wrote that the author had "a very different concept of wilderness than many of us. We want places where safety and survival are not guaranteed . . . and I'm willing to accept the risk inherent in visiting them." As another put it, "There must remain parts of our world that are true wilderness . . . without the safeguards and conveniences of the modern world. Lives are lost in such places, as lives are lost in the larger world, but it is nonetheless good to rely solely on ourselves when we go there."

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