• Hoshea’s Prophetic Allegory: A Lesson in Mercy and Judgment

    The regular haftarah for Parshat Bamidbar is a curious one — though this year, we will read Machar Chodesh in its stead since the new moon is on Sunday this coming week. The haftarah for Parashat Bamidbar, from the Book of Hosea, opens with God commanding Hoshea the Prophet to marry a harlot.  He has three…

  • Yom Yerushalayim: Gratitude, Humility, and Responsibility

    This past Sunday was Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem day, commemorating the day in 1967 that Israeli forces took east Jerusalem and the old city back from Jordanian control. On that day Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared: ”This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned…

  • Physical vs. Spiritual Counting

    In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, the Torah relates that on the first day of the second month, God tells Moses to count the Jewish people.  This is the third time in the Torah that the Jewish people are counted, as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomoh Isaac, 11century French Torah commentator) says, “They are…

  • The Sanctification of the Firstborn

    In this week’s parsha, Bamidbar, the Jewsih people are counted in preparation for war and entering the Land of Israel.  The Levites are then counted and exchanged for the first born:  “I hereby take the Levites from among the Israelites in place of all the first-born, the first issue of the womb among the Israelites:…

  • Using the Pandemic to Reconnect with What Truly Matters

    Using the Pandemic to Reconnect with What Truly Matters

    We are surrounded by mortality -here in the country we considered safely above epidemics, and in the world at large.  This kind of widespread death shocks us from the comfort of our everyday denial of death.  The human being’s constant background denial of their own mortality allows them to go on day to day, to…

  • The Transformative Role of Counting in the Torah

    In the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, the Torah relates that on the first day of the second month, God tells Moses to count the Jewish people.  This is the third time in the Torah that the Jewish people are counted, as Rashi (Rabbi Shlomoh Isaac, 11century French Torah commentator) says, “They are…