Counting Courage: A D’var Torah on Parashat Pinhas
I have been reading Parashat Pinhas on Shabbat in the Synagogue almost every year since 1982. After so many cycles through the parasha, it feels only right to pause […]
How Big Was Israel in the Wilderness? Four Ways to Read the Numbers in Numbers
Modern readers often do a double take when they encounter the censuses in the book of Numbers. In Numbers 1 and Numbers 26, the text records around 600,000 males […]
The Torah’s Silent Years: What Happened Between Parah Adumah and Mei Merivah?
After Parashat Chukat’s opening laws of the red heifer, the Torah suddenly jumps. We move from the second year in the wilderness to the first month of the fortieth […]
Holy Chutzpah: When Moses Pushes Back
Moses in Numbers 14 doesn’t just beg; he practices what we might call holy chutzpah—a bold, risky way of speaking to God that almost looks like forcing God’s hand […]
Opening the Door, Guarding the Core: Non‑Jews at the Seder
On Pesach night, we sit at a table without a Temple, without a lamb on the fire, but with a Haggadah in our hands and an open door in […]
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 […]
God’s Calendar, Our Lives: Why the Torah Repeats the Holidays Again and Again
Many of us secretly wish the Torah were a little more concise. Why repeat the same lists over and over? Yet when it comes to the holidays, the Torah […]
From Isolation to Return: Tazria & Metzora and the Path Home
Tazria–Metzora is one of the hardest portions in the Torah to relate to our lives. It deals with strange skin afflictions, bodily processes, and a complex system of purity […]
Holy Eating: What ‘Kadosh’ Really Means
This week’s Parasha, Shmini, describes one of the most intimate ways God shapes a people: not only through revelation at the entrance to the Mishkan, but also through the […]
From Exodus to Altar: The Journey of Matza
On Pesach, matza is the bread of being taken out of Egypt; in Leviticus, matza is the bread of coming close to God. The same simple, unleavened bread quietly […]