Just before the Torah switches from blessing to rebuke in our second portion, Behukotai, God reminds the people that they were removed and liberated from Egyptian servitude in order to walk upright, and without restraint (Levit. 13:13). The word for “upright” קוֹמְמִיּוּת is unusual and ambiguous. As Rashi comments, it means “standing straight,” which is…
Category: 3 Leviticus ויקרא
The Palace of Torah Expanded: Aharei Mot-Kedoshim 5781
For many modern readers, engaging with Torah presents a paradox. Biblical and rabbinic voices reaching us from the distant past are like starlight emitted millennia ago—brilliant and often shockingly current, but also artifacts from light sources that may have dimmed or even expired. This paradox can be constructive, drawing modern readers out of our own…
Confessions of Joy: Vayikra 5781
The Hebrew word “semikhah” in various forms alludes to drawing close, leaning into or supporting another, or laying on of hands. In that purposeful contact there is a transfer of energy and the establishment of connection between two living beings. When Moses lays hands on Joshua, he confers spiritual power, ordaining Joshua as his successor….
Sheltering in Place: Shabbat Tzav/HaGadol 5780
Confinement is the dominant experience of the Covid-19 crisis, whether one is healthy but avoiding unnecessary outings, or ill and under quarantine. My favorite time of day here in NYC is 7 PM when people lean out their windows and cheer for health care providers and other front line workers. From our apartment we see…
Minyan in Cyberspace?
The Coronavirus pandemic has affected our lives in many unfortunate ways, and we worry that much worse is yet to come. Saving lives is our first obligation, and this responsibility led most Jewish communities across the world to cancel public worship as soon as public health officials recommended this measure. As with other aspects of…
Defective Priests and Animals; Dignity Demanded for All. Emor 5779
Last week in Parashat Kedoshim we read one of the most enlightened passages in the Torah. In verse 14 the Torah commands us not to curse the deaf, nor to trip the blind, but to fear the Lord your God. This verse is embedded within a glorious section about social solidarity, including concern for the…
Silence Above and Below: Aharei Mot 5779
Ze’ev Wilhelm Falk was a professor of law at Hebrew University who also served as rector and faculty at the Schechter institute in Jerusalem. Born in Breslau in 1923, he fled Germany alone at 16, arriving in Israel in 1939, and went on to study in the Hevron yeshivah and then at Hebrew University. He…
Stupid Anger: Shmini/Parah 5779
Anger is often an understandable reaction, and yet it can be one of the most destructive and debilitating of emotions. It is hard to imagine how Moses feels when his two nephews Nadav and Avihu are struck dead in the middle of the inaugural service for the tabernacle. Guilty? Terrified? Shocked? All of these, I…
Coming Clean: Vayikra/Zakhor 5779
False oaths are an especially pernicious form of social crime because they cause serious harm to individuals while also imperiling an entire system. Oaths were administered using the divine name (and in rabbinic Judaism, while holding a Torah scroll or pair of tefillin), and so, false oaths were also viewed as a form of heresy….
Theology as Meteorology: Behar-Behukotai 5778
Imagine if your weather app displayed not images of sun and clouds, but icons of good and evil, like this: ☺ ☹. Each city might have a virtue index—with the weather forecast tracking not the jet stream but morality, indicated by a friendly or fierce face. City X has been charitable, so they can expect light rains…
Karma and Kehunah: Aḥarei Mot-Kedoshim 5778
They’re a strange combination, Aḥarei Mot and Kedoshim. The former parashah focuses on an inaccessible ritual—possible only for a certain person, at a specific time, in a sacred place, from which we have been exiled for millennia. The Torah states, “no person may be in the tent of meeting when he [the priest] enters.” In…
Our Bodies, Our Souls: Tazria-Metzora 5778
Pity poor Rabbi Akiva. He had a difficult youth and a dreadful death, but at least he enjoyed the respect of his colleagues, right? In Bavli Sanhedrin 38b Reish Lakish claims that God gave Adam the First a preview of all the sages to come, and when he reached Akiva, Adam rejoiced in his Torah,…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 