As Yourself
I noticed that parshanim explaining the chumash on the one hand, and shas and posqim showing how the pasuq is associated with halakhah on the other, often end up giving different explanations of pesuqim...
Category: 3- Vayiqra
Behar: Money and Human Dignity
Parashas Behar is a list of mitzvos. The first section is all about shemittah and yovel. A family’s ancestral land cannot be sold into perpetuity. Instead, if someone is forced to sell their holdings,...
Imitating G-d — Be Holy for I Am Holy
There are three pesuqim in which our rabbis find a source for the duty of imatatio Dei, emulating G-d, or at least — emulating the examples He shows us….
Parashas Tzav and the Book of Mrs. Job
Vayiqra is about the qorban as performed by the person bringing it. Tzav is the qorban as performed by the kohein. These are two totally different things. Each of us live in our own world.
We have a book of Iyov, which tells the story of the tragedies Iyov lived through. But Iyov’s wife? There is no book explaining her tragedy. Nor that of his children. Those would have been very different books with very different stories. Every person impacted by an event is a protagonist in and of themselves, and Hashem insures that their experiences and duties make sense for them within their own perspective.
The Chatas and the Olah
There is a difference in halakhah between how a bird is slaughtered when brought as a qorban chatas and when brought as a qorban olah. The Torah says (Vayiqra 5:8-10) that the kohein must...
Meshekh Chokhmah – BeChuqosai
Parashas BeChukosai begins “אם בחוקוני – If you follow My statutes… ” and continues by promising “I will give you your rain .. in its time.” The reward for following Hashem’s laws is measure-for-measure through...
Meshekh Chokhmah – Behar
Parashas Behar opens with the mitzvah of shemittah. The Meshakh Chokhmah’s first two entries on the parashah are about (1) what shemittah implies about how Hashem gave Eretz Yisrael to us and (2) the...
Meshekh Chokhmah – Emor
Part of parashas Emor (VaYiqra 22:26-23:44) contains a survey of the holy days of the year. It is well known because it is also read on the first day(s) of Sukkos and in the...
Shaarei Yosher – VeAhavta leRei’akha kaMokha
Vayiqra 19:18 famously says “VaAhavta lerei’akh kamokha, ani Hashem — love your neighbor as yourself, I Am Hashem. Rav Shimon Shkop has much to say about this pasuq, so I followed up the previous...
Shaarei Yosher – Qedoshim
Instead of discussing a comment by the Meshekh Chokhmah this week, I chose to present an idea from Rav Shimon Shkop’s introduction to Shaarei Yosher. The thoughts in this shiur are bits taken from...
Meshekh Chokhmah – Acharei Mos
The Torah returns to the topic of the death of two of Aharon’s sons when introducing the Yom Kippur service in the Beis haMiqdash. What is the connection between the two topics? The Yerushalmi...
Meshekh Chokhmah – Introduction to Vayiqra
There is a dispute between the Rambam and the Ramban’s Castilian school about the role of qorbanos. The Rambam apparently* says that qorbanos were proposed as a strategy to wean people away from avodah...
An amazing, wonderful and fundamental Tanchuma
H/T RYGB, who posted this Tanchuma under the same title (“An amazing, …”). I would like to add translation. Medrash Tanchuma, Tzav (#3 in Warsaw ed., #5 in Buber ed.): “This is the Torah of...
What’s the rush?
דְּבַשׁ מָצָאתָ אֱכֹל דַּיֶּךָּ פֶּן תִּשְׂבָּעֶנּוּ וַהֲקֵאתוֹ. If you find honey, eat just enough; lest you get full and vomit it. – Mishlei 25:16 (In the days of the geonim and earlier rishonim it was...
Holiness and Carrying the Yoke with the Other
(The following is based on a class I gave on Shabbat at Mussar Kallah IX, and is the further development of a number of ideas R’ Gil Student and I wrote for Mesuqim MiDevash.)...
Purpose of Qorbanos, part II
“This is what is meant by the verse (Tehillim 89:7), “For who in the heavens can equal God, can compare with God among the divine beings?” Said the A-lmighty, “If I wanted a sacrifice,...
Purpose of Qorbanos
When reviewing what I wrote on this subject for the Mesukim on Vayiqra, I noticed some more points. First to summarize:Rambam (naively reading the Moreh Nevuchim): Hashem gave us qorbanos, a normal idolatrous practice,...
Atah Qadosh
“You Are Kadosh, and Your Name Is Kadosh, and kedoshim praise You every day. Selah! [For you are G-d, King, Great and Kadosh. –Sepharad] Baruch Atah … the Kadosh G-d.” The question of kedushah...
Parashas Eiqev
In this week’s parashah Moshe describes Hashem as “… haKel haGadol haGibor vihaNorah — the G-d, the Great, the A-lmighty, and the Awesome …”. These words were incorporated by the Anshei Kinesses Hagedolah into...
Recent Comments