The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

You're probably aware by now that I'm very interested in unusual and unexpected starting and stopping places in the Torah. Why is a parashiyah ended here? Why does an aliyah begin there? This week's parashah, Pinchas, feature one of those and I can't resist investigating. The parashah begins with Hashem throwing His protective mantle over Pinchas, granting him not only immunity for his vigilante actions, but also an eternal covenant of priesthood. Having done that, Hashem turns to Moshe and instructs him to exact vengeance from the MIdyanites, who caused the Jews to die by the droves in the wake of their idolatrous orgy with the MIdyanite women. To this end, it is necessary to take a census of the fighting men (over 20 years of age), and this is done by Eleazar and Moshe. It is pointed out that, by thie time, we're counting a new generation, since all those who needed to die in the desert on account of the sin of the spies had already died out.The last verse...

It's well known that Bil'am is considered the paragon of evil by Jewish tradition. It's also a common experience that a read through this week's parashah hardly depicts Bil'am as such an evildoer - he is a sorcerer who is somehow somewhat conversant in engaging Hashem, who tells those who come to summon him that he'd like to oblige, but he can only do what Hashem tells him to do. After repeating this caveat, he goes, meets Balak, performs the rituals necessary to invoke Hashem, and blesses Israel , as Hashem instructs him. What's so bad about that, other that a little self-interest? Rashi helps us see deeper into the text, teasing out the clues to Bil'am's real character by carefully exploring precisely what he says and how he says it. He uses as his guide the statement in Avot, chapter 5:19: Anyone who possesses these three traits is a disciple of Avraham, our father; (one who possesses) three opposite traits is a disciple of Bilam the wicked....

Parashah Hukkat is somewhat of a Parah-dox (you knew it was coming, didn't you?). On one hand, it opens with the commandment to prepared the ashes of a perfectly Red Heifer (the name, spelled "redheffer", of my first-year calculus professor, I kid you not) for purposes of purifying anyone from the impurity conveyed through touching or certain types of proximity to a dead body. This passage is said to have been taught already back in Sefer Shmot, at Marah (Chap. 15), before coming to Mt. Sinai . At the very least, it must have been taught before the Mishkan was put into operational mode, and so, although placed here, it really belongs much early in the sequence of events. On the other hand, most of the Parashah deals with events that take place in the fortieth and final year of the desert trek. Commenting on the first verse of chapter 20 (the first verse after the passage dealing with the Parah ritual), which reads, "The people of Israel came, all of the assembl...

This week's parashah, Ekev, presents with many wonderful passages, teachings, insights, and a few commandments as well. It sets the stage for the next three parashiyot which, together, contain an astounding 170 of all the Torah's 613 mitzvot. The first we encounter in parashat Ekev is the commandment to bench . After describing the marvelous qualities of the Land to which Hashem is bringing B'nei Yisrael - a goodly land, a land lacking in nothing - Moshe says, "V'achalta v'sava'ta uverachta et Hashem E-lokecha al ha'aretz hatovah asher natan lach" - You will eat and you will be satisfied and you will bless/thank the Eternal, your G-d, for the good land which He has given you. The trouble with this passage is that it hardly seems to be phrased as a commandment. Rather, it is Moshe's prophetic vision of a people, eating to satiation and exprssing the natural feeling of gratitude that comes in the wake of such abundance and satiation. For, if...

There is a dispute in the Gemara as to how the korban pesach should be eaten. A verse in the Torah instructs us, "upon matzah and maror shall you eat it [the korban pesach]. Hillel understands this literally: "upon" implies, make a sandwich of all three - meat and bitter herbs wrapped in unleavened bread [note: fresh-baked matzah of old was thicker and softer than our present-day matzah. The Sephardi tradition maintains this form of matzah, which is more like a pittah than the matzah most of us are familiar with. It is unleavened - no yeast or sourdough leavening agent is added - but it is soft and pliable within the first few hours of its baking, longer by modern refrigeration]. The other Rabbis understood the word al ('upon") as "along with". Indeed, that usage is common in the Torah. Unlike Hillel, who insisted that the only way to fulfill the mitzvah of eating the korban pesach was in sandwich form, the Rabbis said that as long as matzah and maror ...

This shabbat we begin the last of the chumashim, the concluding fifth, Devarim, meaning, of course, "words". Everyone knows (borrowed from Reb Shlomo, when he was saying something that practically no one knew until it struck them deep, and then, they KNEW) that Hashem plays a great joke on Moshe, quoting him as saying "I'm not a man of words" ( Lo ish devarim anochi ) in attempting to refuse the offer that cannot be refused in Shemot. So Hashem sets Moshe up to deliver a thirty-day discourse - practically the entirely of Sefer Devarim - which begins with the words, "these are the words which MOSHE spoke..." ( Eleh hadevarim asher diber Moshe ). I wish to look with you at ONE of those words which Moshe spoke. The word and its associations are well-known, so consider this merely a reminder. In beginning his recounting of the trek through the desert to this younger generation (those not killed off in the desert during the forty years), Moshe says tha...

This shabbat we begin the last of the chumashim, the concluding fifth, Devarim, meaning, of course, "words". Everyone knows (borrowed from Reb Shlomo, when he was saying something that practically no one knew until it struck them deep, and then, they KNEW) that Hashem plays a great joke on Moshe, quoting him as saying "I'm not a man of words" ( Lo ish devarim anochi ) in attempting to refuse the offer that cannot be refused in Shemot. So Hashem sets Moshe up to deliver a thirty-day discourse - practically the entirely of Sefer Devarim - which begins with the words, "these are the words which MOSHE spoke..." ( Eleh hadevarim asher diber Moshe ). I wish to look with you at ONE of those words which Moshe spoke. The word and its associations are well-known, so consider this merely a reminder. In beginning his recounting of the trek through the desert to this younger generation (those not killed off in the desert during the forty years), Moshe says tha...

In this week's double parashah, we find one of several treatments scattered through the Torah of the subject of the cities of refuge. The passage dedicated to presenting those laws here is the longest and most detailed in the Torah. It spells out all the circumstances in which an accidental murderer (somewhat of an oxymoron in English) must flee to a city of refuge, evading the bloodavenger. It also spells out all the circumstances in which a person is to be considered a true murderer who must be put to death. At the end of the passage, we are warned not to accept a bribe offered by the accidental or intentional murderer to deal lightly with him and excuse him with a lesser punishment. It reads: Do not take a bribe for the life of the murderer, who has done evil deserving of death, rather, die he must. Do not take a bribe for one who must flee to a city of refuge enabling him to return and dwell in the land before the death of the (high) priest. Do not "flatter" the ...

So here we are again, having moved all the way around the world, we're back at the edge of a new year, about to enter a new land along with our people on the edge of Eretz Yisrael in this week's parashiyot. About to bid farewell to Moshe - no, that's impossible and to welcome, can it be, Yehoshua?? Goodbye sun, hello moon. At this precarious point of being, Moshe has a few choice words for us. Yes, us, as he insists: "You, all of you, are stationed before Hashem, your G-d... Not with you alone am I cutting this covenant and this curse, rather with everyone here today before Hashem your G-d, and with everyone not here with us today". Moshe goes on and warns, lest anyone think himself free of the implications and the responsibilities of this covenant, and things to worship alien gods in secret, saying. "peace will be mine though I I go off according to my own whims..." Uh-uh. Hashem will punish not only that individual, or family, or clan, but the en...

On Pesach we read the first of the five megillot , Shir HaShirim , a work drenched in the nature and its abundance, its fecundity. On three occasions the narrator abjures the daughters of Jerusalem "by the gazelles or by the does of the field" - do not arouse or awaken love until it please. Like many verses in Shir HaShirim , this verse, with its symbolism, is subject to many explanatory attempts by the various commentators over the generations. What, precisely, are those gazelle and those does (a deer, a female deer) supposed to represent? Well, I have the inside track on this one, since I have a doe myself. I'm speaking of my daughter, Ayelet, whose name means "doe". G-d willing, Ayelet will be bat-mitzvah in a couple of months. She's a wonderful and challenging neshamah, and one of her outstanding characteristics is a love for animals that knows no bounds. Naturally, she has special affection for her pets, but her concern extends to any animal of ...

So here we are again, having moved all the way around the world, we're back at the edge of a new year, about to enter a new land along with our people on the edge of Eretz Yisrael in this week's parashiyot. About to bid farewell to Moshe - no, that's impossible and to welcome, can it be, Yehoshua?? Goodbye sun, hello moon? At this precarious point of being, Moshe has a few choice words for us. Yes, us, as he insists: "You, all of you, are stationed before Hashem, your G-d... Not with you alone am I cutting this covenant and this curse, rather with everyone here today before Hashem your G-d, and with everyone not here with us today". Moshe goes on and warns, lest anyone think himself free of the implications and the responsibilities of this covenant, and thinks to worship alien gods in secret, saying. "peace will be mine though I I go off according to my own whims..." Uh-uh. Hashem will punish not only that individual, or family, or clan, but the e...

As with last week, no time, no time, we're having our new in-laws and sheva berachot e5c. However, a short thought, seeing as how Ki Tavo is also Elisha's Bar Mitzvah parashah: Ki Tavo is famous for playing host to the great "blessing and curse" passage which concludes the collection of mitzvot which has spanned three parashiyot. The parashah opens', however, with two mitzvot which are effectively the concluding mitzvot of the great mitzvah collection. The first the the mitzvah of bikkurim, the bringing of the first fruits. The second is bi'ur ma'asrot, the ensuring that all tithes and priestly gifts have been actually given to their recipients, and not merely set aside. Interestingly, both mitzvot contain declarations which are part and parcel of their respective mitzvot. There's much to say, of course, on both the mitzvot themselves and on the declarations - the first of which forms the text upon which the central passage of the Haggadah, Tze U...

One of the most well-know of all tree-related traditions is the mitzvah of Bal Tashchit - the prohibition of cutting down fruit trees even in times of war. Based upon the underlying principle of this mitzvah, we are enjoined from wantonly destroying any useful object, even if it happens to belong to us. Thus, in a society of material surfeit, bal tashchit has become the clarion cry awakening us to the waste that our lifestyles generated daily unawares. In fact, this mitzvah has come to symbolize an environmental consciousness that, it is sometimes claimed, is a foundation of the Torah's value system. Indeed, bal tashchit is invoked in such a wide variety of circumstances that often the original, framing context is lost. These framing contexts deserve more attention, however, as they serve as the "womb" in which the embryonic mitzvah first emerges, and we can learn a tremendous amount regarding the deeper implication of a given mitzvah by carefully examining its setting....

This week's parashah, Re'eh, presents before us the first set of the 170 mitzvot delivered in rapid-fire fashion the in the three central parashyiot of Devarim. These mitzvot center around sacrificial service, public idolatry, eating prohibitions, poverty and property, and the festival calendar. Woven through all the passages is one of the leitmotifs of Devarim "the place which I shall chose to make My Name dwell there" The parashah is bookended (as is so often the case) by a keyword which returns at the end of the parashah transformed grammatically and conceptually. This word is Resh-Aleph-Hey - seeing. The word Re'eh is actually the first word of the parashah, and, as Menachem Kohn (son of R. Daniel - the rav of our yishuv - and Batya) pointed out in his Bar Mitzvah derashah this week, it is strange that we are told to see, but there doesn't seem to be anything to see! "See, I place before you today a blessing and a curse". How do you see the...

Introduction "Thirty days before Pesach we begin inquiring as the requirements of the festival and expounding upon their fulfillment". Pesach, the holiday which celebrates the birth of the Jewish people and its liberation from slavery, is a beautiful Jewish tapestry, woven from threads of mitzvot and customs, poems and declarations, things to eat, things to drink, things to break and things to hide. By beginning thirty days before the holiday to lay its foundations, investing our energies in scrubbing and reading, cooking and inviting, we thereby prepare ourselves for a Pesach Seder overflowing with Jewish meaning and profound renewal. 1. Freedom and Slavery: The difference between the slave and the free man is not merely one of social position. We can find an enlightened slave whose spirit is free, and, on the other hand, a free man with the mentality of a slave. Intrinsic freedom is that exalted spirit by ...