Beha’aloscha – Class-ic Complaint
Rashi, quoting the Gemara, understands the nation’s “weeping about its family” (Bamidbar 11:10) as referring to ‘matters of family’ – to the fact that relatives who were once permitted to be joined in marriage...
Category: Jewish World
Naso – Chinuch 101
Haftaros always have some connection to something in the parsha, but few are as explicitly related to what was read from the Torah as the haftarah of parshas Naso, which haftarah , like part...
Bamidbar – No Date, No Place
We read parshas Bamidbar (Bimidbar, if one wants to be didactic) on the Shabbos before Shavuos. The meaning of that juxtaposition might lie in the word by which the parsha is known ((however one...
Behar – A Saying That Says Much
There are a number of common English aphorisms that parallel (or are sourced in) Talmudic statements. What Chazal said in Avos (1:15), “Say little and do much” echoes in “Actions speak louder than words.”...
Metzora – Mitigating the Miser’s Mindset
Nega’im, “plagues” that consist of certain types of spots of discoloration that appeared on the walls of a house after Klal Yisrael entered their land, signaled tzarus ayin, literally “cramped-eyedness,” what we would call stinginess....
My Father’s Matzo
A Pesach -themed piece of mine appeared in the Boston Globe and can be read here. If you’re denied access, just let me know ([email protected]) and I’ll happily share a PDF.
Tzav – The Import of the Ashes
An interesting Midrash is cited by Rav Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer (1880-1933), a great-grandson of the Chasam Sofer who served as the av beis din of Cracow before World War II. The Midrash is found...
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
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,...
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