Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

One of the privileges of being the Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is my annual trip to Israel. Each winter, I have the chance to visit with our 3rd year students, pursuing our course of studies in Jerusalem. I use the time to meet with leaders of Conservative Judaism in Israel, to confer with rabbis and scholars from other streams of Jewish life, and have a chance to speak at a variety of yeshivot and institutes while I’m there. It is both a joy and a great privilege to be able to spend time in Jerusalem. Read more...

All of the Hebrew former slaves to Pharaoh were scurrying through their homes, gathering their possessions in preparation for their march out of Egypt, toward freedom. Collecting their pots and pans, clothing, children, animals, their meager property, the Jews rushed to be ready to leave when the moment of liberation finally arrived. And Moses? What personal objects did he collect? "Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying 'God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.' " Read more...

One of the characteristics of youth is impatience. While older adults are tempered by the realities of human passivity and inertia, young people agitate for immediate change and progress. Unwilling to concede that society moves very slowly, unable to accept human suffering and callousness, our colleges remain centers of agitation and protest as young people attempt to translate their dreams of a redeemed humanity into a living reality.   Read more...

The Torah recounts that Moses "came to Horeb, the mountain of God. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed." Read more...

Immune to despair, the twentieth century has been one of the greatest disappointments in human history. More people died in warfare in this century than in all others combined. Racial hatred rose to unprecedented heights. Despotism plunged to new depths of ruthlessness and efficiency. Epidemics, illiteracy and bigotry -- our inheritance from times past -- continued throughout these tragic years. Our environment began to crumble. Democracy forgot that it was to be humanity's last, greatest hope -- whether a nation conceived in liberty could long endure. Read more...