Torah Commentary

Deuteronomy: Perashat Ekev — Feminist Torah and Salvation Underfoot

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Dr. Tamar Ross has pointed out that while many of the Halachic hurdles that prevent full participation by Jewish women in Jewish life can be overcome by proper analysis of the Halachic texts, there is still not yet an adequate theology of the specifically feminine in Judaism to provide meaning to the contemporary observant woman. For many years (even back in Seattle and Juneau, Alaska), I have been attempting to conceptualize just such a theology, without recourse to an essentialist argument, or one that derives from male defined gender roles.

Torah Commentary

Tisha B’Av

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There is a well known teaching that appears several times in the Talmud and Midrash (JT Yoma 1:1, Yalkut Tehillim 886), which states that ‘any generation in which the Temple is not rebuilt, it is considered as if that generation had itself destroyed the Temple’. Certainly this would seem to be a rather severe judgement, for as the Sefat Emet points out, many generations containing many great and righteous people have passed without the Temple being rebuilt, and it would be fairly extreme to say of them that they had personally destroyed the Temple.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Devarim

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Perashat Devarim is the beginning of Moshe’s extended deathbed monologue, presented just as the people are preparing to enter the land, under a new leadership. In these perashiyot, we have a review by Moshe of the events of the Exodus, along with a repetition of many mitzvot and some theological statements, in a tone traditionally interpreted as critique or “tochacha”.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Balak: Becoming-Mule

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Perashat Balak stands as a unique narrative segment in the Torah. For the first time, we are given a narrative episode which is entirely not experienced by the Israelites; what in the entertainment world might be called a “behind the scenes” presentation, or to use contemporary film theory terminology, we are “sutured in” from an entirely different vantage point, outside of the usual concern with the Exodus.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Hukkat: The Red Heifer Ritual — Distance Bringing You Closer

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This weeks perasha begins with the laws of ritual purification mandated by contact with the dead. The ceremony, in days when the Temple stood, involved the ashes of a red heifer, which were reconstituted by the priest with purified water (an early “not-from-concentrate” product, I suppose, and in which no downer cattle could be used) and sprinkled upon the individual or object that needed purification. Curiously, while the formerly ritually defiled individual was now ritually pure, the priest that performed the ceremony became himself temporarily ritually defiled, as the Talmudic phrase goes, “the ashes of the red heifer purify the defiled and defile the pure”.

Torah Commentary

Numbers : Perashat Shelach : The Gaze Upon the Land

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The Tiferet Shelomo of Radomsk presents a reading that also stands as a proper critique of ideologies that claim to know best what is good for the “people”. He argues, a la Rousseau, that the spies decided that they knew better what was for the good of the people than did the people themselves, or Gd for that matter.

Torah Commentary

Shavuot: Sweet Dreams

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The holiday of Shavuot is distinct among the major festivals of Jewish life in that it has no obvious distinctive ritual elements. Whereas Pesach has its seder and marror, and Sukkot has its, well, sukkot, Shavuot is not given any particular unique commandments, not in its Biblical textual source, nor in the halachic sources.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Naso: Situating The Sotah

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This perasha contains within it a series of commandments which have been largely unrelated to normative practice for the last few thousand years. At least regarding one of these episodes, this is probably a positive thing; I’m referring of course to the Sotah text, the depiction of the ritual trial of the woman accused by her jealous husband of adultery.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Bamidbar

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I. Come In Under the Shadow of This Red Rock (or, Shelter in the Wasteland)
Bamidbar 1:1- And Gd spoke to Moshe in the Sinai Desert within the Ohel Moed (the Appointed Tent) on the First of the Second Month in the Second year from the Exodus from Egypt saying… This week we begin the fourth of the books which comprise the Torah. This book, known most commonly as “Bamidbar”, “In the desert”, is also known as “Homesh Hapequdim” or as it is conveniently translated, as “Numbers”. In general, we have a return to the narrative of the wanderings in the desert of the Israelites, as well as some commandments, most of which, as pointed out by Ramban, are not of normative force today, though as usual we will attempt to derive emotive meaning from them as we encounter them.

Torah Commentary

Perashat Behukotai: Walk This Way

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Here we are, at the close of the book of Vayikra, the book of Holiness, concerned primarily with what was intended to be the highest service, in the Temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood. However, as the Bet Yaakov points out, this perasha does not begin as do most of the others, with a speech act to Moshe, that is, with the usual “And Gd spoke to Moshe”. Here, the perasha begins with ” Im behulotai tailaichu”, “if only you would walk in my ways and keep my commandments and make them happen”. This “if only”, then, is taken by the Bet Yaakov as describing not a command, but a prayer on Gd’s part, so to speak. It is not a command that is needed after the presentation of so much holiness, for a command can not actualize holiness; what is needed to make holiness happen is a prayer.