Weekly Parasha

  Parashat Bereishit — Genesis 1:9–13 Each day of creation closes with a verdict. Light is good (1:4). The sea and the dry land are good (1:10). Vegetation is good […]

This week’s parashah, Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32), is built around one of the Torah’s most remarkable passages: a long, highly compressed poem placed near the end of Moses’ life. It is […]

  This week’s parasha, Nitzavim, opens with one of the most inclusive moments in the Torah. Moses gathers the entire people, leaders, elders, men, women, children, and even the stranger […]

Parashat Ki Tavo describes one of the Torah’s most beautiful ceremonies: the bringing of bikkurim, the first fruits, to the Temple in Jerusalem. The farmer would bring a basket of […]

  Parashat Ki Teitzei contains more mitzvot than any other parashah in the Torah—traditionally counted as seventy-four. Its commandments cover an astonishing range of life: the laws of warfare; the […]

  Parashat Shoftim is concerned with the question of authority. It introduces judges and officers, priests and Levites, prophets, and finally the king. In each case, the Torah is not […]

  The presentation of the Ten Commandments in Parashat Va’etchanan (Deuteronomy 5:6–18) constitutes one of the most significant textual variants in the Pentateuch. While the Decalogue first appears in the […]

  This week we begin the fifth book of the Torah with Parashat Devarim. If you read it with an open eye, something striking jumps out: Moses is retelling stories […]

  This week’s parashah is a double portion, Matot–Masei. My focus today is on a story from the first of these, Parashat Matot, which opens with one of the most […]