PARSHA POSTS: BECHUKOTAI | The Blogs

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Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden

Sep 6, 2023, 5:08 PM

Seven reasons why Jews are cursed twice in the Torah

You'd have expected a guide to life to be 100% positive and nice. And you would think that Jews would not be singled out for punishment. But Jews need to be exemplary, a beckon of light for others. And with...

May 17, 2023, 1:06 AM

The Word is Mightier than the Sword

How to love happily ever after... Israel is under attack. This time, we’re facing what is considered the greatest test ever. And I’m not only referring to rockets from Gaza. For over a year now, Israel has been torn asunder by internal...

Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden

May 13, 2023, 10:06 PM

The unkind have no right to talk about homosexuality

Don't be kind to the unkind or you end up being unkind to the kind - Talmud A man who proclaims women are weaker and less smart than men forgoes his right to indignation when we prove it's the opposite:...

William Hamilton

May 12, 2023, 4:29 PM

“I felt like I grew ten inches taller,” Sandy said. She was recalling the first time people she highly admired asked her for her opinion on how to solve a problem. When they said, “What do you think, Sandy?”...

Frederick L. Klein

May 12, 2023, 6:31 AM

Behar-Bechukotai: Israel at 75, but Is it Our Land Anyway?

I have just returned from the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s mission to Israel, in which over eight hundred Jews went en masse to celebrate the gift of 75 years. Much has been written about the struggles being waged in...

May 11, 2023, 9:55 PM

Living in Holy Time

From the very beginning, the Torah directs us to sanctify time. The first day in the Torah concludes “וַיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַיְהִי־בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד—there was evening, there was morning, one day” (Gen 1:5). We are commanded in the first mitzvah given...

May 11, 2023, 9:53 PM

When we perceive God as the enemy.

Our Parsha contains one of the two instances of ‘rebuke’ (תוכחה) that are found in the Torah. It echoes some of the darkest chapters in Jewish history. The Midrash shares a unique perspective whereby God is - so to...

May 11, 2023, 9:47 PM

Family Feeling (Covenant & Conversation, Behar-Bechukotai)

I argued in my Covenant and Conversation for parshat Kedoshim that Judaism is more than an ethnicity. It is a call to holiness. In one sense, however, there is an important ethnic dimension to Judaism. It is best captured in...

May 11, 2023, 12:33 PM

Polycrisis — In the Parasha and at the Protests (18)

This is my eighteenth consecutive post connecting the parasha with Israel's pro-democracy protests. If you read the Financial Times or Chartbook, the newsletter of historian and FT guest columnist Adam Tooze (author of The Wages of Destruction: The Making and...

Ben-Tzion Spitz

May 10, 2023, 9:22 PM

Divine Israeli Meals (Behar-Bechukotai)

The Seven Species (AI-generated image by BSpitz)

The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth. -Frances Moore Lappe The reading of the Torah portion of Behar introduces us to the laws of the Sabbatical...

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