Parashat Behar

Behar
Rabbi Len Levin

All Persons Free under God

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” (Leviticus 25:10, inscription on the Liberty Bell)

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with Me.” (Leviticus 25:23, motto of the Jewish National Fund)

“For they are My servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bondmen.” (Leviticus 25:42)

The liberation from Egyptian slavery, which we celebrated a few weeks ago during Passover, marked the beginning of a new regime of liberty for ancient Israel. But in the modern world, the spirit of freedom in the pages of Israel’s Bible served as an inspiration for the founders of the American Republic, and more recently for Zionism and the State of Israel.

The code of civil laws starting in Exodus Chapter 21 Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2014-11-05T11:17:29-05:00November 5, 2014|

Parashat Emor

Emor
Rabbi Isaac Mann

The beginning of this week’s Torah portion is in a sense a continuation of last week’s, which dealt with the tenets of kedushah (holiness) that are incumbent upon all Israelites. In Emor the Torah begins with the specific strictures that apply only to the kohanim (the priests of Israel) due to their added state of holiness.

The Talmud (Yevamot 114a) takes note of the unusual wording of the first verse in this parashah (Lev. 21:1) – “G-d said to Moses ‘Say (emor) to the kohanim, the sons of Aaron, and say to them (ve’amarta aleihem) do not defile yourself by coming into contact with the dead…” The duplication apparent in this verse (see Rashi and Siftei Hakhamim ad loc.), which rabbinic interpretation generally eschews, is interpreted by the Rabbis as a warning to the priests – and by extension to everyone else – not to cause their offspring to violate the laws of the Torah. Thus, the first emor is directed to the Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2014-11-05T11:15:05-05:00November 5, 2014|

Parashat Kedoshim

Kedoshim

Rabbi Michael Pitkowsky

Holiness, kedushah, abounds in this week’s parashah. The Children of Israel are commanded to be holy (Lev. 19:2; 20:7), God is described as being holy (ibid.), and God is also described as sanctifying Israel (Lev. 20:8). Holiness is a concept that invokes strong religious emotion and it is empowering, but holiness also has the potential to be misused. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who was an Israeli scientist and philosopher, was very weary of the potential abuse of holiness as a formative concept in our religious lives. According to him, only God is holy. He wrote the following as a warning against what he felt were the dangers of attributing holiness to people, historical events, actions, objects, and places:

“One expression of the transformation of faith into idolatry is to be found in the distortion of the concept of holiness. The recognition that holiness is an attribute of God and is Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-11-05T11:12:30-05:00November 5, 2014|

Passover

What’s in a Name?
Hazzan Marcia Lane

Like all three pilgrimage festivals, Passover has several names. It’s called Hag ha-Pesah, the ‘passing-over’ holiday, in Exodus 12:11 and in several other places in the Torah. That name refers to the fact that when the Angel of Death comes to kill the firstborn in the land of Egypt, he skips, passes over, the houses of the Israelites which are marked with blood on the doorposts. In acknowledgement of the connection of the holiday to the cycle of the agricultural year, it’s also called Hag ha-Aviv, the Springtime festival, alluded to in Deuteronomy 16:1.

It seems obvious that this holiday, during which we are prohibited from consuming or even possessing hametz, leavened foods, should also be called Hag ha-Matzot, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That name occurs in Exodus 12:8 and in several other places. The Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-11-05T11:10:16-05:00November 5, 2014|

Parashat Aharei Mot

Aharei Mot
Jerome Chanes

Chapter 17 of Sefer Sh’mot (the Book of Exodus) begins by recalling the deaths of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. The parashah thence goes into the details of the behavior of the person who is about to enter the sacred precincts of the Mishkan (tabernacle) or the Temple, God’s house. The description of the service in the parashah is conventionally read as preparation for entering the sacred precincts, the kodesh ha-kodoshim, on Yom HaKippurim, but there is nothing in the text to indicate that this is so. More about this question below.

Why are the rules of the kodesh ha-kodoshim preceded by the comment about the death of Aaron’s sons? What do we learn from the proximity of the two texts? In the initial story of the death of Aaron’s sons, the reason given is that they “brought strange fire”, whatever that means. In our parashah, the reason given Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-04-10T08:37:58-04:00April 10, 2014|

Parashat Metzora

Embracing the Marginalized

A Dvar Torah for Parashat Metzora

By Len Levin

“This shall be the ritual for a leper on the day that he is to be purified.” (Leviticus 14:2)

“Once leprosy had gone, and the figure of the leper was no more than a distant memory, these structures [the medieval European leprosaria or lazar-houses] still remained. The game of exclusion would be played again, often in these same places, in an oddly similar fashion two or three centuries later. The role of the leper was to be played by the poor and by the vagrant, by prisoners and by the ‘alienated’ [i.e., the insane], and the sort of salvation at stake for both parties in this game of exclusion is the matter of this study.” ― Michel Foucault, History of Madness

We are social beings. As such, we create hierarchies. Even Read More >

By Rabbi Len Levin|2014-03-30T12:41:55-04:00March 30, 2014|

Parashat Tazria

This week’s Torah portion, Tazria, begins with laws pertaining to the ritual cleanness or uncleanness of a woman who just gave birth and then proceeds to deal at length with the same ritual issues regarding someone with tzara’at (often mistranslated as leprosy). That this parashah follows on the heels of Shemini, which largely deals with the cleanness or uncleanness (more commonly referred to as laws of kashrut) of various species of animals calls forth the attention of the Midrash.

In a well-known statement attributed to R. Simlai found in the Midrash Rabbah (quoted by Rashi to Lev. 12:2), he remarks on the order of the above two Torah portions. Instead of dealing first with laws pertaining to the ritual status of man/woman and then that of the animal kingdom, the Torah inverts the order and seems to give priority to the latter over the former. R. Simlai resolves this “illogical” sequence by referencing ma’aseh bereishit (Creation) – “Just as the creation of man took Read More >

By Rabbi Isaac Mann|2014-03-27T00:13:07-04:00March 27, 2014|

Parashat Shemini-Shabbat Parah

This Shabbat, Shabbat Parah, is the third of the special Shabbatot that are observed from before Purim, beginning with Shabbat Shekalim, and continuing through the Shabbat before Rosh Hodesh Nisan, Shabbat ha-Hodesh. This week’s special maftir Torah reading is about the Parah Adumah, the Red Heifer. This section of the Torah is read because the use of the Red Heifer’s ashes was a necessary step in the process of purification before the offering of the Korban Pesah, the Paschal offering. The meaning of the Red Heifer has challenged commentators and interpreters since late antiquity. The following midrash addresses the meaning of the Red Heifer, contrasting the explanation that was given by a rabbi sage from the first century CE to a Gentile with the explanation that he gave to his students. Raising the question of whether we should tailor our teachings and opinions to different audiences.

A gentile asked Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, saying Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-03-18T10:20:07-04:00March 18, 2014|

Purim

The Faces of Purim: A Journey
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD

Cursed be Haman who sought to destroy me; blessed be Mordechai the Jew. Cursed be Zeresh the wife of the one who terrified me;
blessed be Esther for my sake. Cursed be all the wicked; blessed be all the righteous; and may Charvonah also be remembered for good.
Shoshanat Yaakov

Rabbah said: A person must get drunk on Purim until he does not know the difference between “blessed is Mordechai” and “cursed is Haman.”
Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b

On Purim, Jews all over the world will dress in costume and hear a ceremonial reading of the book of Esther accompanied by merriment and noisemaking to blot out the name of Haman. They will send presents of food to one another, give gifts to the poor, make a Purim feast, and make fun of traditions and sacred texts. This rite of spring gives us a chance to break out, to Read More >

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2014-03-09T17:38:10-04:00March 9, 2014|

Parashat VaYikra

Give it up!

Harold Ramis, the actor/director/screenwriter of Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, just died. May his memory be for a blessing. His movies treat the absurd with earnest seriousness. They are works of comic genius. While discussing Groundhog Day he likened the experience of watching the movie with reading Torah.

The film is the film; It does not change…. But we are different each year, each time we see it…. It’s like Torah. Every year, every Jew all over the world reads the Torah. We start it on the same day, we read the exact same section each week as every Jew around the world. But it’s different each year. I mean, the Torah is the Torah. It hasn’t changed. But we’ve changed.

This week we begin the book of Vayikra, the central book of the Torah. Most of this book depicts a world that simply doesn’t exist anymore, a world of Read More >

By ahsilver|2014-03-03T23:15:39-05:00March 3, 2014|

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

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