Bemidbar

How did the Levites know when to take down the Tabernacle and when to put it up? Rashi cites an ancient midrashic tradition that the great cloud that protecting the encampment would move, thus signalling the time when the campsite was to be dismantled and move. In other words, we followed a cloud.

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Behar-Bechukkotai

Yom Ha'atzmaut fills me with unqualified joy. Yom Yerushalayim, celebrated tomorrow on Iyar 28, always makes me a little uneasy. To an extent, especially in Israel, it has become the festival of the religio-political "right", those who accord supreme importance to Jewish sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel and oppose territorial compromise under any circumstances.

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Behar-Bechukkotai

Yom Ha’atzmaut fills me with unqualified joy. Yom Yerushalayim, celebrated tomorrow on Iyar 28, always makes me a little uneasy. To an extent, especially in Israel, it has become the festival of the religio-political “right”, those who accord supreme importance to Jewish sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel and oppose territorial compromise under any circumstances.

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Emor

When we first moved to our home, I decided to plant a kitchen garden. For better or worse, our house is situated such that it is our front garden which is south-facing and, hence, the better location to grow edible crops.

And so any visitor or passer-by will easily note that we are currently growing an array of edible crops in front of our suburban semi.

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Acharei-mot Kedoshim

The Seir l'Azazel, or scapegoat, is one of the most perplexing rituals in the Torah. Two identical-looking goats are brought to the Temple on Yom Kippur. The High Priest conducts a lottery by putting his hands into an urn which contained two lots. One read l'Hashem, for God; the other l'Azazel, for Azazel.

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Tazria-Metzora

Tazria contains passages I have long struggled with. As the mother of baby daughters, it is painful to read that childbirth is somehow contaminating and that the birth of daughters is twice as contaminating as sons. Others share my discomfort. Abarbanel states flatly that the new mother "has committed no sin", while Nechama Leibowitz describes this ruling as "most perplexing".

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Shemini

In the midst of verses about sacrifices and kosher and non-kosher animals, we find this incredible expression of unity and solidarity. When Aaron brought a collective sin offering, "the whole community came forward and stood before the Lord". Perhaps there is no other verse in the Torah that presents this expression of communal regret and communal accountability.

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Tzav

The thanksgiving offering was brought by someone who had (for example) survived great danger, escaped captivity or recovered from a grave illness. The offering was accompanied by 40 loaves of four different types of bread (Leviticus 7:12, Talmud Menachot 77b).

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Vayikra

Parashat Hachodesh begins with the first commandment directed to the Israelites as a nation. They are commanded to designate Nisan as the first month and thereby institute a lunar calendar.

Commentators ask why the commandment to sanctify the months is included in this special pre-Pesach reading, rather than focusing solely on the later verses dealing specifically with the paschal sacrifice.

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Vayakhel-pekudei

We recognise these words from the very first chapters of Genesis. God spent six days creating heaven and earth, finished the work and then rested. He blessed the Sabbath day, made it holy and asked the rest of us to do the same.

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Ki tissa

In order to count the people, this week's sidrah famously states, each person is to give a half shekel and that is to be counted.

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Tetzaveh

The haftarah tells the story of Saul's downfall, wrapped up in the package of the war against Amalek. The chapter begins by God telling Samuel to instruct Saul to take revenge against the Amalekites for what they did to the children of Israel after they fled Egypt.

The instructions are explicit: kill everyone, destroy everything, spare no one and nothing (not even the livestock).

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Terumah

The Aramaic translation attributed to Yonatan ben Uzziel, who lived at the turn of the last millennium, makes a rather obscure comment on this verse. He notes that the middle bar inside the planks, which made up the walls of the Tabernacle, was made from the wood of a tree planted by Abraham in Beersheba.

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Mishpatim

Perhaps the most distasteful aspect of the recession is the rise of loan companies charging exorbitant interest. So it is both disheartening and humbling to find the commandment prohibiting interest in this week's parashah.

Centuries ago, the rabbis were clear about the crippling effects of extortionate interest.

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Yitro

This family reunion embodies everything one might wish for in a relationship with one's in-laws: respect, affection, concern and companionship. Jethro was more than a family member; he was one of Moses's most trusted advisors. As we feel heart-warmed by this meeting, there is someone who is notably absent.

Jethro brought his daughter Zipporah and grandsons from Midian as part of this reunion.

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Beshallach

One intriguing approach among Jewish thinkers to the famous passages in our sidrah, and in chapter 25 of Deuteronomy, concerning the trans-generational struggle against Amalek is exemplified by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) in his commentary on Beshallach.

For Hirsch, the war of Israel against Amalek is not a physical confrontation but rather an uncompromising contest between two conf

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Bo

In a parashah that provides us with the substantial theological conundrum of how far human free will extends, we must also contend with another great theological challenge: why does God slaughter innocents? The problem here is not why God allows such an act to happen, but rather that it is God who appears to do the slaughtering - not some intermediary, but God.

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Va'era

God assures Moses that He will redeem the Jewish people from the slavery of Egypt and bring them to the Land of Israel which they will inherit forever. Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher, the 13th-century commentator known as the Baal Haturim, points out that there are only two places in the Torah which speak about a morashah - an inheritance.

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Shemot

In this week's parashah, Moses leaves the privileged confines of Pharaoh's palace and witnesses an Egyptian attacking an Israelite slave. Moses looks around, sees no-one and beats the Egyptian to death.

Rashi offers a literal explanation, suggesting that Moses looked around and killed the Egyptian once he was sure that he could not be seen.

This literal reading is problematic.

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Vayiggash

Jacob leaves the Holy Land once again, this time to travel to Egypt, where he is to be reunited with his long-lost son, Joseph. Before he leaves, God promises Jacob that He will both accompany him there and return him to his homeland.

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