פרשת נשא / ט’ בסיון תשפ”ב
In this week’s portion we again hear the complaints of the Jews regarding the food that God is providing. They remember the good food that they ate in Egypt. They seem to be forgetting the real price they had to pay for that “free” food. They were slaves and God does not want us to slaves.
פרשת נשא / ח’ בסיון תשפ”ב
In this week’s portion we learn about the punishment for the wayward wife. That is a woman who is warned not to be wife a certain man and she does so anyway. Part of the punishment is that she is given animal feed to eat. This is to teach her that just as she behaved like an animal, so we treat her as such.
פרשת במדבר / ד’ בסיון תשפ”ב – מ”ח בעומר
In the Book of Ruth we are introduced to a character known as Ploni Almoni, the Hebrew equivalent of John Doe. He is presented as a good man who does not want to marry Ruth. He has solid reasons not to, and he was wrong. Boaz could have used the same excuses but chose not to. That is why we remember Boaz and not Ploni Almoni.
פרשת במדבר / ג’ בסיון תשפ”ב – מ”ז בעומר
In the Book of Ruth, Boaz is presented as a great man of charity. Yet he allows the poor to glean his fields and thus forces them to go to the threshing floor, then to the bake the bread. Wouldn’t it be kinder to the poor just to give them bread? The answer is that would take away from the poor’s dignity.
פרשת במדבר / ב’ בסיון תשפ”ב – מ”ו בעומר
The Book of Ruth begins the story with the statement “In the days when the Judges judged. The Hebrew, though, can be read as “In the days when the Judges were judged.” The meaning is clear. Every decision that the Judges made was criticized. In a society in which the legal authorities are constantly challenged will lose its cohesiveness. We must realize that the law has to be objective, not open to our whims.
פרשת במדבר / כ”ח באייר תשפ”ב – מ”ג בעומר
Today is the anniversary of the Liberation of Jerusalem in 1967. For Jews this was an open miracle. There were many miracles during the 6 Day War and Jerusalem’s liberation was the high point. The question is do we recognize it when God performs miracles for us.
פרשת בחוקותי – כ”ה באייר תשפ”ב – מ’ בעומר
When a Jewish court was required to hand down a death sentence they would go out to the country and bemoan that breakdown in society. The idea that the crime did not happen in a vacuum. It happened because there is something wrong in society in general.
פרשת בחוקותי / כ”ד באייר תשפ”ב – ל”ט בעומר
Many people blame their actions on others or things. The fact is that we make our own decisions. God gave us free will. It is always our choice, and we suffer the consequences when we make the wrong one.
פרשת בחוקותי / כ”ג באייר תשפ”ב – ל”ח בעומר
The curses of this week’s portion have to do with a breakdown of society. One of the problems is that people say, “that is your truth”. Interesting the Hebrew word for truth, אמת, has no plural. This infers that there is only one truth, not multiple truths.
פרשת בחוקותי / כ”ב באייר תשפ”ב – ל”ז בעומר
When we read the portion we see that God will judge us not so much on how well we pray or perform our rituals, such as the sacrificial service, but on how we treat each other. As the Mishna says the first question that you will be asked in the next world will be “Were you honest in your business dealings?”