Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Sukkot And you shall take for yourselves on the first day, the fruit of the hadar tree, date palm fronds, a branch of a braided tree, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for a seven day period. (Vayikra 23:40) My son, I already wrote to you several times about the preceding matter, that a person is affected by his habitual behavior, and his ideas and all his thoughts are...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Yom Kippur Like the anchor in the sailor's hand; If it pleases him, he holds it, If it pleases him, he casts it away. So too are we in Your hand, Good and forgiving God. Look to the covenant and take no notice of the evil inclination. (From the service for Yom Kippur eve) As this potter can I not do to you, O house of Israel? says the Lord. Behold, as clay in...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Rosh Hashana – Parshat Ha'azinu May we and all Your people, the House of Israel be remembered and inscribed before You for good life and peace In the Book of Blessing, Peace, and Good Livelihood. (From the High Holy Days Amida prayer) Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta said: The Holy One, blessed be He, found no vessel that could preserve Blessings for Israel, save peace, for it is said: The Lord grant His people strength, the Lord bless...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech And I will hide My face on that day, because of all the evil they have committed, when they turned to other deities. (Devarim 31:18) The meaning of I will hide is that if they call Me I will not answer; it is metaphorically like someone who does not see and does not know what to do. And the doubling of the verb (haster astir) is a linguistic convention known to grammarians. (Ibn Ezra ad...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Ki Tavo You shall be blessed when you come, and you shall be blessed when you depart. (Devarim 28:6) Blessed will you be when you come, and blessed will you be when you depart: May your departure from the world be as free of sin as was your entry into the world. (Rashi ad loc, Judaica Press translation) Blessed will you be when you come, and blessed will you be when you depart – To...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Ki Tetseh When a man takes a wife and is intimate with her, and it happens that she does not find favor in his eyes because he discovers in her an unseemly matter, and he writes for her a bill of divorce and places it into her hand, and sends her away from his house. (Devarim 24:1) Beit Shammai say: A man should not divorce his wife unless he has found her guilty of some unseemly...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Shoftim You shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you to possess. Prepare the road for yourself and divide into three parts the boundary of your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance, and it will be for every killer to flee there. (Devarim 19:2-3) And direct roads were leading from one to the other, as it is said,...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Reeh And you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God you and your sons and your daughters and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite who is within your cities, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. (Devarim 12:12) And the Levite because he has no portion or inheritance with you – Rabbi Yehudah bar Shimon says: The Holy One, blessed be He, said – "If you have four members in your household,...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Ekev For the land to which you are coming to possess is not like the land of Egypt, out of which you came, where you sowed your seed and which you watered by foot, like a vegetable garden. But the land, to which you pass to possess, is a land of mountains and valleys and absorbs water from the rains of heaven. (Devarim 11:10-11) Land and Man R. Brekhiya said in the name of R. Shimon ben...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Vaetchanan If your son asks you tomorrow, saying, "What are the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which the Lord our God has commanded you?" You shall say to your son, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord took us out of Egypt with a strong hand. (Devarim 6:20-21) If your son asks you tomorrow: Tomorrow may mean, "at a later time." (Rashi ad loc) If your son asks you...