It’s hard not to notice that the last chapter in the portion that precedes this week, Kedoshim, concerns a stoning and the last chapter in this week’s portion, Emor, does as well. This signals me to an organizational scheme that doesn’t quite
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If the first three chapters of Genesis set out the framework for the Torah project, Leviticus 16 forms its narrative heart. Positioned between the Purity Code and the Holiness Code, it ties together two parts of a central Torah concept in a
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For those of you who follow my blog and who are puzzled with my Torah Ecology posts or find them unreadable…I would like to explain. In a few words, my blog is about religion and food and the intersection between them. This has
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Once upon a time I had a teacher who assigned me to read and report on a book titled Nizzahon Vetus, more fully titled, THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN DEBATE IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES: A CRITICAL EDITION OF THE NIẒẒAḤON VETUS. The book is
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A Tale of Two Trees (Gen 2:4-3:24) Relationship, as psychologists tell us, depends as much on separation between entities as it does on connection. The Torah is a story of two trees and three domains. Through the symbolism of the two trees, it tells us
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“And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste–it is the LORD’S passover” (וְכָכָה, תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ–מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים, נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ
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Tzav continues the story of love, betrayal, jealousy and restoration begun in Ki Tissa, the Golden Calf episode. Ki Tissa was a remarkable account of “the deep wound in G-d that results from Israelite infidelity, a statement of the profound interdependence of the Israelites not
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WHAT CREATION HAS TO DO WITH LEVITICUS The first chapters of Genesis tell a story about the creation of the world. It’s easy to read the story as a fanciful tale of a world without death, a world in which all of nature
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Sometimes it’s more about what’s not said than what is. That is the case in the coming week’s Torah portion, a double, Vayahkel-Pekudei. AARON’S FALL FROM GRACE If the first half of Tetzaveh represented the apex of Aaron’s power and authority as high priest,
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Ki Tissa, “When you take a sum…,” is filled with things to contemplate! It fascinates me that these stories consistently reveal narrative structures, a scaffolding of sorts, that supports meaning. I’m not always sure what the meaning is — that might be
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