PARSHA POSTS: ACHAREI MOT

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Yulia Medovoy Edelshtain

May 9, 2025, 5:35 PM

Jerusalem life is all about going with the flow and waiting for the right time and place. You feel the divine, but also experience constant movement brimming with living life to the fullest. I just went to an amazing...

May 9, 2025, 2:45 PM

Yachol Kamoni: Being Like God

Parshas Kedoshim begins with the command, "You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). On this, the Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 24:9) comments "yachol kamoni," which is commonly translated "can you be like Me?" Simply understood, the verse...

May 9, 2025, 1:52 PM

Leviticus, the Chosen and the Fourth Order

This week’s Torah reading, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim, brings us to the part of Leviticus known as the “Holiness Code.” In enjoining Israel to be a holy nation, a nation of priests, how does Leviticus view that role in the context...

May 9, 2025, 12:31 PM

Visions of the Eternal: Parshat Acharei Mot

This week, a soldier who lives in Omer was killed in action. Our whole community mourned. Maps were sent out to the whole community detailing the route from the deceased's home to the local cemetery. His home happens to...

May 9, 2025, 12:30 PM

Love Is Not Enough (Acharei Mot-Kedoshim)

The opening chapter of Kedoshim contains two of the most powerful of all commands: to love your neighbour and to love the stranger. “Love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord” goes the first. “When a stranger comes...

May 8, 2025, 10:06 PM

‘We Come After’ — Reflections on October 7th and Watershed Moments

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein (zatz"l), in a seminal speech to the American Jewish community in the 1990s, offered a spiritual reckoning of Modern Orthodoxy—its strengths and its challenges. In it, he reflected on a belief he had espoused three decades...

May 8, 2025, 2:40 PM

Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: Being Worthy of the Land

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has found itself in an existential struggle for survival. What began with Hamas’s brutal assault on the communities of the Gaza envelope, quickly escalated into a multi-front war. Hezbollah soon joined the fray, launching...

May 8, 2025, 7:02 AM

Standards and Practices

In the middle of the myriad of laws in this week's Torah portion, Aharei Mot, Scriptures appears to take a break. G-d tells Moses to relay to the Israelites that He is the Almighty -- "Speak to the Israelites,...

May 8, 2025, 6:16 AM

Unlike Any People

Towards the end of this week’s first Torah reading, we begin a section of the Torah called the Holiness Code, at least that’s what Bible critics call it. Even though I totally reject their ‘criticism’ of our Torah, I...

May 8, 2025, 6:14 AM

Naming Evil, Confronting the War on Truth

“Acharei Mot” — After the death. So begins this week’s Torah portion, shadowed by the sudden, tragic deaths of Aaron’s sons. In response, God commands a ritual: the sacred drama of Yom Kippur. Two goats. One was offered on the...

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