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...
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...