Chukas – Vocabulary and Venom
In the only instance of a pun in the Torah (isha from ish doesn’t count), we find Moshe forging the nachash hanechoses, the “snake of copper,” out of that particular material because nechoshes sounds...
Korach – The Nature of Nature
My late friend and once-Staten Island Ferry chavrusa Yossie Hutler, zichrono livrachah, once posed an insightful question about parshas Korach. “[In the] morning,” Moshe tells Korach and his entourage, Hashem will make His will...
Agudath Israel on Reversal of Roe
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States overruled Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Agudath Israel of America welcomes this historic development. Agudath Israel has long...
Parshas Shelach – The Importance of Feeling Unthreatened
The idea that the prohibition against lashon hora, “speech of evil,” includes speaking negatively about a thing, not just a person, is surprising. But the sin of the meraglim, the scouts who were sent...
Happy’s Happy, But Not Human
Happy the elephant isn’t a person. That seeming truism was the official ruling of New York’s highest court last week, necessitated by a suit brought by the Nonhuman Rights Project aimed at freeing the...
Beha’aloscha – Woe Isn’t Us
The reflexive form of the word k’mis’onenim (“The people were mis’onenim [complaining] bitterly before Hashem” – Bamidbar 11:1) indicates that our ancestors were self-focused in their grumbling. They were mourning themselves, sorrowful (as per...
Naso – No Small Wonder
A bracha we make several times daily has an etymological connection to the nazir, the laws for whom are included in the parshah. It lies in a word in the second pasuk of that...
The Jewish Way to Celebrate Yom Yerushalayim
Residents of Israel and Gaza dodged a bullet on Sunday (May 29) — in fact a slew of bullets, and bombs and missiles. Sunday was “Jerusalem Day,” an annual celebration that commemorates Israel’s capture...
Bamidbar – The Child Makes the Parent
The reference in the parshah (Bamidbar, 3:4) to the fact of Nadav and Avihu’s childlessness can be read as a simple explanation for why further generations of their lines are absent from the Torah’s...
There Will Be Blood
Do people not see what seems so apparent? How can the Flag March scheduled for this Sunday, Yom Yerushalayim, not lead b’derech ha-tevah, to Jewish deaths c”v at the hands of Palestinians who have...