Birkat Kohanim: The Bridge to Holiness
Parashat Nasso is famously long and, at first glance, a little disjointed. We move from the census of the Levites, to laws of interpersonal wrongs and restitution, to the […]
Out of Sync, Still Together: Why Israel and the Diaspora Read Different Parashot
Every Shabbat, communities around the world read a fixed section of the Torah, the parashat ha‑shavua. Over the course of the year, that cycle lets us “walk” through the […]
Why Do We Eat Dairy Foods on Shavuot?
The custom to eat dairy on Shavuot is widely observed, but it is rooted in serious halakhic and symbolic ideas, not just in our love of cheesecake. The classic halakhic […]
Bamidbar: Turning Numbers into a Nation
The English name of the fourth book of the Torah, “Numbers,” suggests a dry accounting project: lists, totals, statistics. In Hebrew, though, the book is called Bamidbar—“In the Wilderness”—a […]