Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Behukotay And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the LORD, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad: as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand. (Lev. 27:14) And he shall add a fifth – that it and its fifth will be five, and so too with a house and a field and an estate, and in the second tithe. And the reason is...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Behar "And the land's Sabbath shall be food for you". Not for commerce, nor for waste nor for sprinkling nor for steeping nor for laundering, but eating it is permitted, and also wherever the benefit comes together with its consumption as with eating. For you and your male servant and your maid servant. That is to say, all are equal, just as they cannot be excluded because is hiker , and...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Emor With independence we gained control of ourselves. We achieved freedom of choice. We are not dependent upon others, and the process of redemption can be carried to completion, if so we wish. Redemption is not one of the 613 commandments, and the Halakhic meaning of redemption lies in political independence, in the possibility of observing those commandments which require sovereignty and territoriality in the Land of Israel. The beginning of redemption is the possibility of observing...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Kedoshim A Jew who went through the Shoah, a Jew who lived through five wars: the War of Independence, the Sinai War, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Lebanon War, aside from the War of Attrition – is allowed to fear another war. (Harav Amital, of Blessed Memory: "To Hear the Cry of a Baby" – quoted in: Moshe Maya – A World Built, Destroyed, and Rebuilt, p. 20) Blessed is the...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Achary Mot – Pessah Rabbi Hiya taught: the Torah spoke of four son; a wise son, a wicked son, a stupid son, and a son who does not know how to ask. (Yerushalmi Pesahim 10,4) My honored father of blessed memory said: that at first it was said, "Blessed be He who gave Torah to His people Israel, blessed be He," and afterward, "the Torah spoke of four sons," because by virtue of the Torah it...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Metzora If, however, he is poor and his hand cannot attain, he shall make one male lamb for a guilt offering, to be elevated in expiation for him, one tenth of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in for a meal offering and a log of oil (Vayikra 14:21) If, however, he is poor and his hand cannot attain – Because poverty may be a personality characteristic as in 'gaunt and...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Tazria On the tenth of this month, let every man take a lamb for a father's house, a lamb for a household, in proportion to the persons, each man according to what he eats shall take his portion of the lamb. (Shemot 12:3-4) According to what he eats – who is able to eat. This excludes the sick and the aged who are not able to eat an...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Shmini This is the statute of the teaching that the Lord has charged, saying: Speak to the Israelites, that they take you a perfect red cow that has no blemish and on which no yoke has been put. (Bemidbar 19:2) This is the statute of the teaching. The rites pertaining to the red Heifer were designed to discourage association with the dead, prompted by the bereaved's often excessive love for the departed. Alternatively, that people should...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Tzav – Zachor Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of the LORD, that ye die not: for so I am commanded. Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days – He warned them not to leave the door of the tabernacle by day or night, that is to say, until...