Author: Avi Shafran

If You Want to Help Ukrainian Jews

If you want to help Jews in Ukraine but are (rightfully) wary of some of the “opportunities” to do so, please know that a trustworthy campaign taking no administrative costs has been set up...

Vayikra – Love and Coercion

The Rambam famously explains how, in a case where a Jewish court has determined that a couple must divorce, the court can force the husband to hand the get, or divorce document, to his...

Parshad Pekudei – Disoriented

The pair of verbs describing Moshe’s placing of the luchos, the second set of tablets he received at Sinai, in the aron, or ark, to be placed in the Mishkan, is unusual: Vayikach. Vayiten,...

The Vehemence Virus

You never know what sets some people off.  Back in 2015, when I dared to write that the U.S. remaining as a partner in the Iran Deal might be better than what might happen...

Vayakhel – The Muddle of Our Motives

A miscalculation made by the Nesi’im, or tribal leaders, during the collections made in the desert for the building of the Mishkan resulted in the word “Nesi’im” being written in a diminished form –...

Blinded to One’s Own Bias

Talk about tone-deaf. A teaser for an “investigative” article by “The Journal News,” which serves several New York counties and whose online moniker is “Lohud,” consisted of the image of a clenched puppetmaster’s hand...

Parshas Ki Sisa – 13+13=1

Beginning with Hashem’s name stated twice, the “thirteen middos” (“aspects” or “attributes”) of Hashem’s compassion and love are sourced in our parsha. The formula was taught to Moshe Rabbeinu by Hashem Himself after the...

Terumah – Space, Matter and Meaningfulness

The building of the Mishkan, according to a beraisa in Middos and the Sefer Habahir, mirrors the creation of the world. Both accounts in the Torah, in fact, evidence parallel wordings. Much noted by...

Mishpatim – Mundanity is a Myth

What an abrupt transition, from the miracles and wonders of the earlier parshios of Sefer Shemos to this week’s list of prosaic, painstaking laws. But, just as every letter in the Torah is necessary...

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