Parashat Ha Shavua Commentaries

The Torah portions of Tazri’a and Metzora speak at great length of the irruption of skin disease and how the Kohen was used to re-establish ritual purity after the medical issues had been resolved.  In a sense, then, the thrust of this section of the Torah is to restore peace of mind and spiritual wholeness after the disruption and terror of dis-ease.  The opening lines of the joint portion, speaks of a different form of unusual discharge, that of birth: “When a woman at childbirth bears a male…” Read more...

Imagine the excitement in the air, as the Children of Israel gather around the newly-constructed sanctuary! The Mishkan (Tabernacle) is promised them as the central structure of their encampment, and God promises to be present from that place. All of the people come together to donate their jewelry, to contribute the wood, the gold, the yarn, the skins. Each person with artistic and practical skill joins in the labor, and the kohanim (priests) and levi’im (levites) are consecrated for holy service. Read more...

As we approach this time of liberation, the Festival of Pesah, I want us to reflect on the mysteries of numbers. Countless sages and rabbis have weighed in on their thoughts of how many Israelites were liberated from Egypt — was it 600,000 total, or 2 million, or a mythic embellishment wrapped around a history that remains shrouded from accurate counting, or an archetypical tale that stands on it’s own? Read more...

This Shabbat, we celebrate the Shabbat before Pesach known as Shabbat Hagadol (the Great Shabbat), on which our Torah reading continues through the book of Leviticus, the book dedicated to outlining the Jewish code of holiness.  As we know, the entire book of Exodus which was read for so many weeks prior and which we will recall again as we sit at our Seder tables next week, was devoted to the establishment of the covenant between our ancestors and God.  As we make our way through the book of Vayikra, we find the details of how that covenant will manifest through the human/divine Read more...

We live in an age of technical expertise and calm deliberation. Civilization has now moved to such smooth functioning that there are forms for every occasion and dispassionate experts who keep the system moving along. What we seem to be a little short of is passion—caring deeply about an ideal, an individual, or a cause, and a willingness to devote our talents, energy, and minds to the service of that cause. Read more...