The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

Emor  (revised and updated April 2026) Parashat Emor concludes with one of the only narrative passages in all of Chumash Vayikra - the story of the man who blasphemes. Although the account is brief, it must be of critical importance, for otherwise, why interrupt the halachic flow of Vayikra, a Chumash suspended in time with almost no dateable events, to tell us about a single foul-mouthed boor?

 I created The Pshat Heard 'Round the World some eighteen years ago, and I posted weekly on the parashah for about two years. Other items were added here and there subsequently, but for a long time it's been inactive. IYH, I will be starting a new series of pieces on tefillah, with special attention to the first beracha of the Amidah. My claim and approach will be that the first beracha of the Amidah teaches us how to pray and how to pray it! We'll start with a few preparatory and introductory pieces before jumping in to the beracha itself, phrase by phrase. I am considering enabling comments and dealing with "hackish" comments as they inevitably come, so keep tuned.

Pshat: MiIgra Rama l'Bira Amikta!  From a high roof to a deep pit!  That's how some describe the sudden transition from the incomparable, dizzying spiritual heights of Matan Torah in last week's parasha to the mundane, all-too-earthly laws regulating such unspiritual acts as assault, murder, injury, property damage, enslavement and the like. How could Moshe one moment be reassuring the people regarding the lasting impact of their near-death spiritual high at Mt. Sinai, and the next minute be instructing them how properly to sell their daughters into slavery? How do WE move from the sublime and spiritual to the ever-so-concrete and material in a single week? The Midrash is also disturbed, it seems, by the shift to the mundane realm. Our Sages were constantly fending off the attacks of early Christianity and other sects who pointed to the preoccupation with concrete details as an indication that Jews had lost their spiritual way. Shemot Rabba chapter 30 devotes l...

The tefillin worn on the head (henceforth, “ shel rosh ”) differ in a number of respects from the tefillin worn on the arm (henceforth, “ shel yad ”). One of the differences is this: Though both must contain the four passages in the Torah which make mention of the mitzvah of tefillin, the shel yad has all four passages written on a single parchment, in the order they appear in the Torah, rolled up and placed in the single compartment of the shel yad . The shel rosh , however, is constructed such that it has four small compartments side by side. Though these compartments appear to be tightly bound to one another, in fact, they are almost actually completely separate from one another. They only join at a common base, like the fingers of one’s hand. Into each compartment is placed one of the four passages, written on four separate parchments. Here is a list of the passages, in the order they appear in the Torah: 1.        Kadesh Li – Shemot 13:1-10 ...

The brief exchange between Avraham and Yitzchak on the way to the Akeidah , less than two verses long, and sandwiched between the two phrases “and the two of them walked together” , is the only conversation between this primal father-and-son pair recorded in the Torah. It is all the more powerful because of its brevity, because of its singleness, and because of what it doesn’t say explicitly, yet, by omission, makes overwhelmingly present. When they set off for Har HaMoriah , Avraham takes only what the moment requires – he leaves behind his servants, the donkey and, presumably, any of the provisions they brought on their three-day journey, he takes the wood for the offering (placing it upon Yitzchak), the fire and the knife. That’s all there is – two men, wood, fire and knife. Thus provisioned, they set off together. Here is the conversation. Yitzchak says to Avraham, his father, he says, “my father”,  and Avraham says, “Here I am son”,  and he (Yitzchak) says, “here ...

" Mah Tovu Ohaleicha Ya'akov, Mishkenoteicha Yisrael" .  How good are your tents, Ya'akov; your dwellings, Yisrael!  These words, some of the first we utter each morning as we enter the Beit Knesset for Shacharit, are the opening words of the third and climactic blessing that Bil'am utters in place of the curse he was summoned from afar to place upon Israel. Though Bil'am was intent on cursing Yisrael one way or another, and sought some subterfuge through which to slip in a curse, Hashem placed His word in Bil'am's mouth like a bit in the mouth of a donkey, and compelled him to follow His original, unchanged instructions of blessing Israel. See Ramban, who explains that Hashem's consent to Bil'am's journey was predicated upon the latter's understanding that he may well end up blessing Israel in Balak's presence! So Bil'am knew he was going to be compelled to bless, and yet he went anyway, and uttered some of the most lo...