…governance and a legal system: first the land, then the law. The fact that in Judaism the Torah was given bemidbar, in the desert, before they had even entered the land, meant that uniquely Jews and Judaism were able to survive, their identity intact, even in exile. Because the law came before the land, even when Jews lost the land…
Koren Publishers have launched a new Magerman edition of the Koren Tanach featuring, for the first time, the complete translation of Chumash by Rabbi Sacks zt”l. You can order your copy here and view the opening pages below. Peek Inside…
A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible I Believe is a personal and intimate demonstration of how Rabbi Sacks came to see the world through listening attentively to the Torah and its message for the present and all times. This book is the last instalment of the Covenant & Conversation series of themed books, written by Rabbi Sacks on the…
In English, the book we begin this week is called Numbers, and for an obvious reason. It begins with a census, and there is even a second count toward the end of the book. On this view, the central theme of the book is demography. The Israelites, still at Sinai at the beginning of the book, but on the brink…
How are we to understand the differential roles of men and women within Judaism? On the one hand, Jewish identity is conferred by women, not men. The child of a Jewish mother is Jewish; the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother is not. The source of this halachic rule goes back to the very first Jewish child, Isaac….
The sedra of Bamidbar – “In the wilderness” – it is usually (though not this year) read directly before the festival of Shavuot, “the time of the giving of the Torah”, when we recall the revelation at Mount Sinai. Indeed the opening verse refers to Sinai: “And the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai . . .” What…
The Lord spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. The fourth book of the Bible is known in English as the Book of Numbers – because it begins with a command to count the Israelites,…
On the face of it the connections between the sedra and haftarah of Bamidbar are slender. The first has to do with demography. Bamidbar begins with a census of the people. The haftarah begins with Hosea’s vision of a time when “the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand on the sea-shore which cannot be measured…
Bamidbar is usually read on the Shabbat before Shavuot. So the Sages connected the two. Shavuot is the time of the giving of the Torah. Bamibar means, “in the desert”. What then is the connection between the desert and the Torah, the wilderness and God’s word? The Sages gave several interpretations. According to the Mechilta, the Torah was given publicly,…
Bamidbar takes up the story as we left it toward the end of Shemot. The people had journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai. There they received the Torah. There they made the Golden Calf. There they were forgiven after Moses’ passionate plea, and there they made the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, inaugurated on the first of Nissan, almost a year after…