…cursed Adam, sent them all out of Paradise, at that moment it says: vayikra ha’adam et shem ishto Chava ki he hayeta aym kol chai: Man called the name of the his wife Eve for she was the mother of all living. And at that moment something magical happens. The next verse says: Vayad elokim lahem kutnot or – God…
…stated more clearly than in the laws (Vayikra 25) relating to Shemittah and Yovel, the sabbatical and jubilee years. There are inalienable conditions to Israelite residence in the land. Some of its produce must be shared with the poor. Slaves and debts must be released every seven years. Every fifty years, land must return to its original owners. There must…
…that way and was answered. So you will see that vaya’avor Hashem al panav vayikra, and then we say the yud gimmel middos, and then we say salachti kidvarecha, and we don’t notice that the Sages have stuck together two passages from two different books. Incidentally, why does Rabbi Yochanan say that the Torah says specifically that God wrapped himself…
…I am the Lord your God. Vayikra 23:42 What precisely this means was the subject of disagreement between two great teachers of the Mishnaic era, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva. According to the Talmud Bavli (Succah 11a), Rabbi Eliezer holds that the reference is to the Clouds of Glory that accompanied the Israelites on their journey through the desert. Rabbi…
It is the hardest passage of all, one that seems to defy understanding. Abraham and Sarah have waited years for a child. God has promised them repeatedly that they would have many descendants, as many as the stars of the sky, the dust of the earth, the grains of sand on the seashore. They wait. No child comes. Sarah, in…
The year 2001 began as the United Nations Year of Dialogue between Civilizations. By its end, the phrase that came most readily to mind was ‘the clash of civilizations.’ The tragedy of September 11 intensified the danger caused by religious differences around the world. As the politics of identity begin to replace the politics of ideology, can religion become a…
In recent years we have often felt plagued by reports of Israeli and Jewish leaders whose immoral actions had been exposed. A President guilty of sexual abuse. A Prime Minister indicted on charges of corruption and bribery. Rabbis in several countries accused of financial impropriety, sexual harassment and child abuse. That such things happen testifies to a profound malaise in…
At the beginning of this parsha Moses performs a tikkun, a mending of the past, namely the sin of the Golden Calf. The Torah signals this by using essentially the same word at the beginning of both episodes. It eventually became a key word in Jewish spirituality: k-h-l, “to gather, assemble, congregate.” From it we get the words kahal and…
…to Maimonides is: “If you believe that what happens to you is simply a matter of chance, then, says God, I will leave you to chance.” On this reading, the book of Vayikra ends as it began, with the fateful choice between mikra (with an aleph) and mikreh (with a heh): between seeing life as a call, a summons, a…
…with kedushah, holiness. What is particularly interesting is to note the two-stage process in which the law is set out. It appears first in Vayikra/Leviticus Chapter 21. The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: A priest may not defile himself for any of his people who die, except for a close…