Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Tazria – Metzora When you come to the land of Canaan, which I am giving you as a possession, and I place a lesion of tzara'at upon a house in the land of your possession. (Vayikra 14:34) …tzara'at of houses is one of the things described in the Torah that lack any relation to actual reality. It is precisely because lesions of houses are very strange – one might say supernatural – that the details mentioned...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Shmini I will be sanctified through those near to Me …One may, perhaps, go even further and say: The pious believer who was not there but meekly submits, not to his own destruction, but to that of six million of his brethren, insults with his faith the faith of the concentration camps. The k'doshim, who affirmed their faith in the God of Israel in the light of the doom that surrounded them may well say to...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Tzav – Pesach And he slaughtered , and Moses took some of its blood, and placed it on the cartilage of Aaron's right ear, on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. (Vayikra 8:23) The shalshelet marks a break between words and it always appears towards the beginning of a verse, over a verb conjugated in the singular. It comes to tell us that the subject of the...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Vayikra When a person from you brings a sacrifice to the Lord; from animals, from cattle or from the flock you shall bring your sacrifice. (Vayikra 1:2) Adam – Why is this term used here? Just as Adam, the first man, never offered sacrifices from stolen property, since everything was his, so too, you must not offer sacrifices from stolen property. (Rashi Vayikra 1:2, based on Judaica Press translation) Adam includes converts who...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Vayakhel-Pekuday Then all the wise hearted people of the performers of the work made the Tabernacle out of ten curtains of twisted fine linen, and blue, purple, and crimson wool. A cherubim design, the work of a master weaver he made them. (Shemot 36:8) Wise-hearted The appellation wise-hearted refers to wisdom that belongs to a person as his second nature and whose forms govern his heart at all times, of which it was written when...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Ki Tissa And Moses said to the Lord: "Look, You say to me: 'Bring this people up!' But You have not informed me whom You will send with me. And You said: 'I have known you by name and you have also found favor in My eyes.' And now, if I have indeed found favor in Your eyes, pray let me know Your ways, so that I may know You, so that I may find favor in...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Tetzave You shall make a breast piece of judgment, worked into a design make it in the style of the ephod, make it in the style of the ephod, of gold, blue, purple, and crimson wool, and twisted fine linen shall you make it. (Shemot 28:15) You shall make a breast piece of judgment, worked into a design – Scripture mentions design only with regard to the ephod and the breast piece, because it denotes that...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Truma They shall make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. (Shemot 25: 10) Abba Hanan said in the name of R. Elazar: One verse says, You shall make yourself an ark of wood, and another verse says: They shall make an ark of acacia wood, How can this be? The one applies to when...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Mishpatim But if there is a fatality, you shall give a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot. (Shemot 21: 23-4) Between the Plain Meaning of Scripture and the Halakhah A life for a life, an eye for an eye… a hand for a hand – A life he pays; he does not pay money for life. Rabbi says:...
Shabbat Shalom The weekly parsha commentary (link to original page) Click here to receive the weekly parsha by email each week. Parshat Yitro Moses told his father in law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians on account of Israel, all the hardships that had befallen them on the way, and the Lord had saved them. (Shemot 18:8) Moses told his father-in-law: to attract his heart, to draw him near to the Torah (Mekhilta). (Rashi Shemot 18:8) For if otherwise, why did he tell him? he...