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Accept No Substitutes

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...
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Pinchas 5767

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...
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Balak 5767

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....
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Chukkat 5767

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...
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Ekev 5767

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...
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Wrapped in Redemption: The Hillel Sandwich

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 ...
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Vaetchanan 5767

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...
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Devarim 5767

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...
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