Send this to a friend Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. It could well be a tribute to Soyer's father who in Russia had been a maskil , a purveyor of Jewish and general culture in Hebrew. The bust on the bookcase in the background suggests a man of broad horizons, though quintessentially Jewish in appearance. The dark shades of the painting and the contrast between the sturdy tome and the fragile figure convey not only a sense of precariousness, but also the power of the book.
Love of learning holds the key to the mystery of Jewish survival.
In its scriptural context the word refers to a piece of sacred space, the corner of Solomon's Temple rendered especially holy by the Ark and its contents. Our haftarah is a well chosen sequel to the parashah. If the latter describes the final erection of Moses's mobile Tabernacle, then the former shifts our focus to the dedication of Solomon's Temple nearly 500 years later. The continuity between them is the numinous presence of the Ark from which emanated in oracular fashion God's will. Rather, on the basis of an Arabic cognate, it carries the meaning of the innermost chamber at the rear of Solomon's Temple.