Rosh Chodesh/Parshat Noach

Bereshit 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.

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.
Does God Have The Same Relationship With Everybody?

If God is the God of the whole world, then wouldn't God have the same relationship with everybody? The Torah presents that paradox to us--God is the God of the Jewish People, and also the God of all humanity. That dual set of concerns are mediated through the Laws of the B'nai Noah, the Children of Noah, a way that Judaism and halakhah (Jewish law) incorporate God's sovereignty and love for all people with God's unique mission for the Jews.

Noah is the direct ancestor of all people. Through one son, Shem, he is the father of the Jewish People, and through his two other sons, Ham and Japhet, he is the ancestor of Asians, Africans and Europeans, as well as their modern descendants.

Continue reading.

Bereishit

Genesis 1:1-6:8

The Two Creation Stories

An attempt to reconcile two opposing views of nature.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, Reprinted 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.

I should like to suggest that the inclusion of a second creation story from a cosmic perspective, with all its inelegant redundancy and contradictions, was prompted by a need to address a deep rift that had appeared within the expanding legacy of sacred texts that would eventually crystallize as the Hebrew Bible. The unfolding canon spoke with many voices. Chapter one of Genesis was intended to reconcile conflicting views toward the natural world. Does reverence for nature lead to idolatry or monotheism?

 Continue reading.

Parashat Hol Hamo'ed Sukkot

Exodus 33:12–34:26 and Numbers 29:17–22

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

Continue reading.

A Special Story for Yom Kippur

What happens when a rabbi refuses to continue Yom Kippur services? Find out in this archival recording of The Eternal Light radio program from 1953.


 

Ha'azinu

Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52

This week's commentary was written by Rabbi David Hoffman, scholar-in-residence, Development Department, JTS.

I have always thought it interesting that Maimonides places so much emphasis on words in the process called teshuvah, even for transgressions not against other human beings. After quoting the verse from the Torah that speaks about the importance of confession (vidui) as part of the process for repairing a wrong enacted in the world (Num. 5:5–6), Maimonides emphasizes that this must be done with words. Teshuvah cannot be limited to an internal process of reflection. Maimonides stresses that any internal commitments must ultimately get expressed with words and counsels that the more one engages in verbal confession and elaborates on this subject, the more praiseworthy one is (Laws of Teshuvah 1:1).

Freud also placed much emphasis on the role of language in the psychotherapeutic process. Talking, as in the "talking cure" (Freud would later adopt this description for psychotherapy), was not simply seen as a means for diagnosing the conflicts troubling the patient. Rather, talk itself was the treatment. Giving words to one's inner life allows a person to better understand the motivations for his or her behavior. The process of "talking things out" creates an opportunity to explore undefined feelings and conflicts. Verbally expressing this inner life allows an individual to begin to see the coherent narrative that links up his or her past with the present and a yet-to-be future. It is not so much what we say, but rather it is the process of exploring the inner life that creates healing. Talking—putting thoughts into language—is itself a transformative and redemptive process.

Continue reading.