Moses and Aaron complete the census, in which they tally over eight thousand Levites between the ages of thirty and fifty. This showed how many men were available to physically transport the mishkan/sacred dwelling-place of God through the wilderness—not that the Israelites spent the forty-year wilderness sojourn continually wandering; indeed, there were periods lasting one [...]
I turn to this week’s Torah portion, the first in the Book of Numbers, Sefer BaMidbar, literally, “In the Wilderness.” It is a relief, after the dry, priest-and-purity legislation of Vayikra/Leviticus, to find some narrative leavening the endless Torah law. God commands Moses to number the people, and here, my hackles rise: census-counting is never [...]
Acharay Mote-Kedoshim “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2). This is the verse from which the entire book of Leviticus gets its byname, the “Holiness Code.” This parsha/Torah portion, connected to Acharay Mote/”After the Death [of Aaron’s Sons],” includes a great many mitzvote/commandments intended to infuse our lives [...]
Tazria-Metzora As if to counteract the parsha/Torah portion’s dry, legal listings of purity, impurity, and whatever malady was known as “leprosy” in ancient times (it could include any skin ailment, from a bad rash through psoriasis, including, ironically, mold on the walls of a dwelling, all the way to actual leprosy, which we now call [...]
Shemini After weeks of design and construction, craftsmen extraordinaires Betsalel and Oholiav announce the completion of the mishkan/sacred dwelling-place, built from the seemingly endless donations of the Israelites—neither before nor since has there ever been such a successful fundraising drive in the history of institutionalized Judaism. Inauguration Day arrives, with a grand service of dedication [...]
As we move through our morass of matzo, matzo meal, matzo ball soup, and other Paysadik (Kosher for Pesach) goodies—whose allure may be starting to pall, just a trifle—we find ourselves, this Intermediate Shabbat, reading Shir HaShirim Ashare L’Shlomo—the “Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s,” attributed to King Solomon, son of David, regarded as the [...]
Tzav This parsha continues describing the rituals which accompanied the offering of sacrifices. In particular, those bringing offerings to the mishkan/portable shrine were themselves required to be in a state of holiness. How did a person become holy? By immersing oneself in a mikvah/ritual bath, a man or woman could achieve a state of bodily [...]
With Vayikra/Leviticus, we leave the drama of Moses’s interceding on behalf of God’s often stubborn and rebellious people, and move into what many scholars believe to be the Chumash/Pentateuch’s oldest book. It was originally known as Toraht Kohanim, or, the Priestly Laws, including the many and varied forms of sacrifices and offerings which the Israelites [...]
Kee Teesa Why did the Israelites build the Golden Calf? Barely three months had passed since God freed Israel from slavery, in the course of which they beheld the most extraordinary miracles and wonders: the Ten Plagues, the Splitting of the Reed Sea, and now the thunderous, magnificent descent of God onto Mt. Sinai, certainly [...]
Tetzaveh In the midst of the Israelites’ building the mishkan, the sacred dwelling-place for God during their wilderness sojourn, this parsha/Torah reading has God giving instructions to Moses regarding the attire of the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol. What was his function? He was intermediary between God and the people, charged with a strict [...]
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