Parashat Behar-Bechukotai (Revised May 8, 2026) This week's double parashah, Behar and Bechuotai, bring to a close the book of Vayikra, a book the all-consuming focus of which is, undoubtably, KEDUSHAH, holiness. The last chapter is concerned largely with the kind of vows people make in dedicating something to the service of Hashem in the Mikdash. There are many laws regulating this seemingly noble motivation and its accompanying action, but my attention was taken this time around by the following law: "If (the devoted thing) is an animal of the kind from which an offering is brought to Hashem, any one which is given to Hashem shall be kodesh . One shall not exchange it ( lo yachalifenu ) nor shall one substitute for it ( yamir oto ), good for bad or bad for good; now if one DOES substitute for it, it will be that it and its substitute will be kodesh ." Vayikra 27:10-11 This mitzvah turns out to be very curious, because one is lashed for its intentional violation...
One of the Torah scrolls in the aron kodesh of any shul is always rolled to Parashat Pinchas. That is because this week’s parashah is the unlikely locus of the passages detailing the holiday sacrificial offerings which we read for Rosh Chodesh and for maftir on the various chaggim. As such, it is convenient, when there is more than one Sefer Torah in a shul, to leave one rolled and ready to go. But why are these sacrificial offerings brought just now? This is a question we can and have been asking all throughout Chumash B’midbar, as time and again a halachic passage intrudes into the narrative. Here, as we come toward the end of B’midbar, it is a particular curiousity. In Parashat Emor, in the midst of Vayikra, the offerings are detailed for the various holidays – why shouldn’t this passage be either redundant or mentioned there? What do these offerings have to do with the protective covenant which Hashem extends to Pinchas in exchange for his holy zealotry at Shittim? Naturally,...