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...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Devarim And the Lord said to me, "Say to them, 'Neither go up nor fight, for I am not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies.' " So I spoke to you, but you did not listen, and you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and you acted wickedly and went up to the mountain. (Devarim 1:42-43) Neither go up: There will be no ascent for you, but only a descent...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Matot-Mas'ey Moses sent them the thousand from each tribe to the army, them along with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest to the army, with the sacred utensils and the trumpets for sounding in his possession. (Bamidbar 31:6) If you go to war in your land against an adversary that oppresses you, you shall blow a teruah with the trumpets and be remembered before the Lord your God, and thus be saved from your enemies....
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Pinchas And on the Sabbath day, two unblemished lambs in the first year, and two tenths fine flour as a meal offering, mixed with oil, and its libation. (Bamidbar 28:8 most quotations from Scripture and Rashi herein based on the Judaica Press translation) A pleasing odor – Nahat ru'ah for Me, for I spoke and My will was executed. (Rashi, Bamidbar 28:8) Then...