Renewing Torah: Rosh Hodesh Tamuz

Rosh Hodesh Tamuz | ראש חודש תמוז

Encountering, Forgiving, and Overcoming Our Brokenness

By Rabbi Daniel Klein, Dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College

There are times when the sacred calendar is eerily in sync with reality. As the toll of war in Israel, Gaza, and Iran continues to unfold and existential questions hover around us, we begin this week the Jewish month of Tamuz. This month is noteworthy on our calendar because according to the Mishna, the 17th of Tamuz is an important and painful day in mythic Jewish time. Among other things, it is the day Moshe shattered the tablets when he came down from Mt. Sinai to find the Israelites dancing around the Golden calf; and it is the day when the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70CE on their way to destroying the city and the Temple. Ritually, the 17th of Tamuz begins three weeks of mourning, culminating in the 9th of Av, when according to the Mishna, the first and second Temples were destroyed, and God decreed the Israelites who left Egypt would die in the wilderness because of their lack of faith.

Reading Korach in Times of Trouble

By Rabbi Jessica Spencer`24, Doctoral Student in Religion at Columbia University, NY

If you opened this week’s Torah portion looking for a comfort read, you might be disappointed. The death and destruction in the aftermath of Korach’s rebellion is made even more disquieting by our struggle to understand what was so wrong with the rebellion itself. Commentators over generations have wrestled with the text, pulling apart Korach’s words to find hidden meanings. Especially in times like these, with our hearts in the East, we might be tempted to skip over Korach in search of happier stories, clearer moral lessons. But perhaps it is especially in times like these that we need to read the story of Korach...

Korach speaks to us in a broken world. The parshah makes us doubt who the heroes are and who are the villains, who is really speaking on behalf of whom. Rashi, R’ Eliyahu Mizrachi, and R’ Shabbatai Bass offer us a model of how to read this story without shying away from its difficulties. They look at the text word by word in order to understand it better, to go deeper into the minds of both Korach and Moses as well as rabbis of the past. Are we brave enough to join them in reading the text without looking away, or jumping to easy answers? As we aspire to be a holy people, can we try to understand the shaking ground we stand on, without being afraid?