Parashat Korah 5779
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Parashat Shelah Lekha 5779
Grasshoppers and Giants
A D’var Torah for Parashat Shelah Lekha
By Rabbi Matthew Goldstone
Parashat Shelah Lekha recounts the episode of the twelve spies who travel ahead to scout out the Promised Land. Ten of the spies return to the people with a report of the wonderful fruit of the land coupled with the overwhelming danger of its inhabitants. Not only do these ten spies describe the people of this place as gigantic (אַנְשֵׁי מִדּוֹת), but these scouts convey their own depiction of how these people perceived the intruders – “And we looked like grasshoppers (חֲגָבִים) to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them” (Num. 13:33). Their report strikes fear into the hearts of the Israelites who regret leaving Egypt and God gets angry.
Readers often assume that the sin of the ten spies, and the reason for God’s anger, is that they suggest that the people of the land are too Read More >
Parashat Beha’alotekha 5779
Lighting Us Up: Theology, Pluralism and Becoming the Menorah
A D’var Torah for Parashat Beha’alotekha
By Rabbi David Markus
What does God need of our spirituality, what do we need of it, and how do we know? These questions cast long theological shadows across sacred tradition, and efforts at clarity often generate more heat than light.
It’s with those questions in mind that I read of Parashat Beha’alotekha’s seven-branch gold menorah, symbol of Jewish peoplehood and the modern State of Israel.
Why seven branches? The parashah doesn’t say. God just tells Moses to instruct Aaron: “In your lifting the lamps (beha’alotekha et ha-neirot) to light, let seven lamps shine at the front of the menorah” (Numbers 8:2). The fact of the menorah’s “seven” is assumed.
Torah continues that the menorah should look as previously described – alluding to the design God showed Moses at Sinai (Exodus 25:40). There too, however, Torah doesn’t say why seven branches.
Do the Read More >
Parashat Naso 5779
A D’var Torah for Parashat Naso
By Rabbi Heidi Hoover (’11)
Last week’s Torah portion, Bemidbar, started with a lot of counting of Israelites. This week’s Torah portion, Naso, also begins with counting. The word “Naso” means “take up,” as in “Take up a census of the Gershonites also” (Numbers 4:22). The counting in this Torah portion is of different clans of the Levites who have responsibilities to pack up and transport different parts of the Tabernacle when the Israelites decamp and move on through the wilderness.
We are told the final counts: There are 2,750 Kohathites between the ages of 30 and 50—which are the years when the Levites are responsible for the work of the Tabernacle; there are 2,630 Gershonites; and there are 3,200 Merarites, for a total of 8,580 Levites. This seems like rather a lot of people for the task of packing and moving the Tabernacle around, but the Torah Read More >
Parashat Bemidbar 5779
The “New” Tribes of Israel
A D’var Torah for Parashat Bemidbar
By Rabbi Irwin Huberman (’10)
Over the centuries, there has been much debate and speculation regarding the fate of the twelve tribes of Israel.
In recent years, with the advent of such genealogy programs as Ancestry.com and 23andMe, there has been considerable interest within the Jewish world and beyond in tracing our roots and countries of origin.
Yet, in spite of this new technology, few of us, with the exception of the Kohanim and Levi’im, know which tribe we descend from.
But, can we truly say, in 2019, that the idea of tribalism within Judaism is passé? Perhaps not.
In Biblical times, each Israelite knew where they came from. Each tribe has its own banner. Each tribe had its own personality. In the closing portion of the Book of Genesis, in his last days, Jacob gathers his twelve sons, and gives each tribe its own blessing according to that personality. Read More >
Parashat Behukkotai 5779
A D’var Torah for Parashat Behukkotai
By Rabbi Bruce Alpert (’11)
Reading this week’s Torah portion, I found myself as influenced by what is not in it as what is. What is not in it are the opening words “And God spoke to Moses, saying …” Those words, ubiquitous throughout the middle books of the Torah (they do appear half-way through this week’s parashah), do more than testify to the provenance of the revelation that follows them. They also create a distance between ourselves and those words by letting us know that we are hearing them, not directly, but as transmitted through an intermediary.
The “And God spoke to Moses” to which the opening words of this week’s parashah do not attach, appear all the way at the beginning of last week’s parashah. Even when these two parashiyot are read together, 56 verses separate us from the last mention of Moses’s mediating role. As a result, for me Read More >
Parashat Behar – 5779
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Parashat Emor – 5779
Kedushah: From Hierarchy to Complementarity
A D’var Torah for Parashat Emor
By Rabbi Len Levin
“[The priests] shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the Lord’s offerings by fire…and so must be holy” (Leviticus 21:6).
“These are My fixed times, the fixed times of the LORD, which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions” (Leviticus 23:2).
“The world stands on three things: on Torah, on the [Temple] service, and on deeds of lovingkindness” (Avot 1:2).
“A bastard who is a scholar takes precedence over a High Priest who is an ignoramus” (Mishnah Horayot 3:8).
“Holiness determines and actualizes the spirit as moral spirit. And in the same way the spirit determines and actualizes holiness as the action of moral reason” (Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, end of Chapter 7).
Can sanctity be reconciled with equality?
Kedushah—holiness or sanctity—is one of Read More >
Parashat Kedoshim – 5779
A D’var Torah for Parashat Kedoshim
By Rabbi Isaac Mann
This week’s sidra begins with the Divine command directed to the Children of Israel to be holy (kedoshim tih’yu) “for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2). In Hebrew, the root meaning of kadosh is separate. This prompts us to ask what is the nature of this holiness or separation that God requires of us and how do we achieve it?
At first glance one might respond to these questions by saying: “Look further in the text.” Indeed the very first commandment that follows is the obligation to fear one’s father and mother. This is followed in the same verse by the instruction to observe the Sabbath. The next verse warns us against idolatrous practices. This is followed by some specific instructions regarding the offering of sacrifices. And many more specific halakhot follow in the ensuing verses and chapters without an appearance Read More >
Parashat Acharei Mot – 5779
| Yom Kippur Asks “Answers” – Not Just “Afflictions” A D’var Torah for Parashat Acharei Mot By Rabbi David Markus This week’s parashah (Acharei Mot) brings Torah’s first mention of Yom Kippur (#sorry), so each year this parashah starts me thinking about the High Holy Days (#notsorry). Each year, I recall how three words in this parashah once drove me from Judaism. So each year, I renew my commitment to wrestle these words that challenge me. This parashah’s three challenging words are: “afflict your souls.” Torah “sets a law for all time that [on Yom Kippur] you will afflict your souls (t’anu et nafshoteikhem) and do no work” (Lev. 16:29). That day is to be a “complete shabbat (shabbat shabbaton) [on which] you will afflict your souls (v’initem et nafshoteikhem)” (Lev. 16:31). For Yom Kippur, one mention of “afflict” didn’t suffice: Torah had to say it twice. From “afflict your souls” evolved Yom Kippur’s fasting, abstinence, and Read More > |
