Parashat Hukkat 5784
Our Torah portion this week begins with describing “zot hukkat haTorah - the ritual law” concerning the red heifer.
10
07, 2024
26
06, 2023
Parshiyot Hukkat-Balak 5783
I delight in the robins, cardinals, and other common birds that I regularly see and hear in my yard, and their presence brings me joy. But recently, thanks to the wonders of technology in the form of the Merlin app produced by Cornell University, my ears, mind, and heart have been opened to the knowledge that there are many other, less common and well-known birds, right here in my own backyard. Through the ability of this app to inform me of the birds around me by recording their songs, I have discovered that rose-breasted grosbeaks, warbling vireos, chimney swifts, and cedar waxwings are prone to visiting my neighborhood. Who knew! What a wonder! The joy, uplift, delight, and hope that awareness of these mostly unseen birds bring me is deep and unbounded. They make my day.
Balak, King of Moab, sends Bilam to curse the Israelites. Along the way, Bilam has Read More >
8
07, 2022
Parashat Hukkat
In this week's D'var Torah, Rabbi Ariann Weitzman shows how Parashat Hukkat provides a recipe for communal care that is not a burden to individuals but is a shared obligation across the community.
8
07, 2022
Parashat Hukkat 5782
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah
A D’var Torah for Parashat Hukkat
By Rabbi Ariann Weitzman (’11)
The most frustrating thing about cleaning is that things don’t stay clean and you’re going to have to do it all over again. The second most frustrating thing about cleaning is that it’s hard to do without winding up filthy yourself. This is exactly the paradox of the ritual of the red heifer. As we read at the beginning of parashat Hukkat, the only way to cleanse the ritual impurity attached to caring for or touching the dead is to bring impurity to a wide circle of others. In order to produce the “waters of lustration,” which are used to ritually purify those who have been in contact with the dead, a perfectly unblemished red heifer, who has never had the experience of being yoked, must be slaughtered and burned to Read More >
18
06, 2021
Parashat Hukkat 5781
Click HERE for an audio recording of this D’var Torah
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2
07, 2020
Parashat Hukkat – Balak 5780
A D’var Torah for Parashat Hukkat – Balak
By Rabbi Len Levin
We are reading two parshiyot this week, each rich in lessons. We can only present a few hors d’oeuvres here; enjoy the rest at your leisure!
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The ritual of the red heifer raised many puzzles for the rabbis, to the point that they said that the wise king Solomon, frustrated in trying to solve them, gave up in despair and said: “All this I tested with wisdom, I thought I could fathom it, but it eludes me.” (Ecclesiastes 7:23; Pesikta Rabbati 14:1) The central mystery arises from the fact that it is a ritual for purification from contact with death. We are still struggling to understand the causes of death, which even now are evolving and mutating as we try to cope with them. A favorite question was: How is it that the ashes of the heifer are the Read More >
10
07, 2019
Parashat Hukkat 5779
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21
06, 2018
Hukat 5778
Miriam’s Obituary:
A D’var Torah for Hukat
by Rabbi Irwin Huberman (AJR ’10)
“The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.” (Numbers 20:1)
The descendants of Miriam wish to advise you of the passing of our beloved ancestral mother, during the reading of this week’s Torah portion.
While the Biblical version of Miriam’s passing is limited to a short mention in this week’s parashah, we, the inheritors of Judaism’s oral tradition, would like to tell you more about her life and her legacy.
Additional stories, contained in the Midrash, Talmud and other commentaries, provide additional layers to her story. These teachings from our oral tradition are important, as we eulogize her today.
Miriam was born in Egypt during a time of slavery and persecution. Without Miriam’s intervention, it is conceivable that Moses, our greatest leader, may Read More >
26
06, 2017
Parashat Hukkat
On the Threshold of Eternity
A Dvar Torah for Hukkat
by Rabbi Len Levin
“He who touches the corpse of any human being shall be unclean for seven days…” (Num. 19:11)
For an entire lifetime, one builds up a network of interactions with others in society, a network comprising commerce, family, edifices of knowledge, productive endeavor, life in the public square, a living, breathing complex of order, structure, creative output. When one dies, one takes leave of that world of social interaction and goes on a private journey to we know not where, a mysterious realm where all the bonds of this world are dissolved.
The mourner stands on the threshold of these two realms. Being touched by the recently departed, the mourner feels different. S/he cannot go back to participating at once in the activities of this world as if nothing has happened. S/he must linger a while in the liminal space between this Read More >
25
06, 2015
Parashat Hukkat
Coming into the Home Stretch
by Rabbi Len Levin
A Dvar Torah for Hukkat
We begin a new narrative unit with Chapter 20 of the Book of Numbers. After an indeterminate time lapse in the previous few chapters, the text suddenly announces that Miriam died in the first month. Of what year? Correlating this chapter with Numbers 33:37–39 allows us to infer that Miriam and Aaron both died in the fortieth year of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness. We also learn in the present chapter that when Moses lost his temper with the rock, God decreed that he would die before the people entered the Promised Land.
Thus the narrative is giving us clues that Moses is coming into his home stretch, that in this last year of Israel in the wilderness, the leaders who led them this far – – Miriam, Aaron, Read More >
