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...
Category: Religion
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...
Vo’eira – The Seed’s Decay is All We See
It’s all too easy to disassociate the beginning of a parsha from the end of the preceding one. But Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin, in LaTorah UlaMoadim, sees Hashem’s declaration at the opening of Vo’eira...
Shemos – Nameless
While parshas Shemos (“Names”) does begin with names, those of the shevatim, and introduces the naming of Moshe, it is ironic that, when the parsha’s narrative begins, anonymity seems the rule. “A man went...
Vayechi – People Can Be Mere Stones
It’s easy to resent being mistreated. It’s also misguided to be resentful. Yosef reassures his brothers that he harbors no ill will for their having plotted against him. “Although you intended me harm, Elokim...
Vayigash – Man and Beast
Shepherds were abhorrent to ancient Egyptians, Yosef tells his brothers, as he relates what they should tell Par’oh in order to reserve the area of Goshen for his immigrating family (Beraishis 46:34). We find...
Mikeitz – Low-Key is a Lesson for the Ages
“Why display yourselves when you are satiated, before the children of Esav and Yishmael?” (Rashi, Beraishis 42:1). That is the Gemara’s (Taanis 10b) understanding of Yaakov Avinu’s exhortation to his sons, lama tisra’u (understood,...
Vayeishev — Momentous Moments
The nature of the “work” that Yosef came to Potifar’s house to do on the day when the Egyptian’s wife sought to entice him to sin with her (Beraishis 39:11) is famously the subject...
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