Vayikra – A Phenomenal “Fat”
Among the eimorim, the portions of non-olah animal korbanos that are burned on the mizbe’ach, in contrast to the animal’s meat, which is eaten, is the cheilev she’al hak’layos – the “fat atop the...
Author: Avi Shafran
Pekudei – One Thing Leads to Another
It’s intriguing that, just as Chazal place importance on being masmich geulah litfillah – placing a reference to redemption immediately before prayer, i.e. the amidah (Berachos 4b, 9b) – we find something similar in...
Two Purim Pieces
My Ami column for the Purim issue can be read here. And a piece I wrote for Religion News Service is here. A happy and meaningful Purim to all! AS
Parshas Ki Sisa – Wealth Recycles
A famous palindromic word in the Torah is venasnu, in the second pasuk in the parsha. It means “and each man must give,” in the context of contributing the machatzis hashekel, which the Torah...
Tetzaveh – When Obscenity is Apt
The imperatives of civility and refined speech are strongly stressed in the Talmud and in halacha. Yet, like all ideals, even those have their limits. An exception – the only one – to the...
Terumah – Sanctifiers
The word mikdash in the pasuk “They shall make for Me a mikdash so that I may dwell among them” (Shemos 25:8) should, by reason, be mishkan, as various meforshim point out. It is,...
Mishpatim – A Puzzling Prohibition
There’s something puzzling about the law prohibiting a judge to take a bribe (Shemos 23:8). The law, of course, is aimed at ensuring that a decision will be made without prejudice. As the pasuk...
Yisro — Iron and Irony
I’ve long fixated on a phrase Yisro uses. When he rejoins Moshe and joins Klal Yisrael, he declares why, although he had been a guru in countless cults, he came to the conclusion that...
Bishalach – The Nation Newborn
I’ve always found it delightful that the term we use for when the amniotic sac ruptures, releasing the fluid within and beginning the birth process, is “breaking of the waters.” Because the birth of...
Parshas Bo – The Sound of Silence
The dogs in Egypt were still as they watched the Jewish people leave the land (Shemos, 11:7). The Midrash contends that, in keeping with the concept that “Hashem does not withhold reward from any...
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