Weekly Torah Reading, Bereshit, October 26, 2019
Don’t Touch That Tree! Who was more responsible for the Fall of Man, Adam or Eve? On the face of things, it was mostly Eve’s fault. After all, the snake talked her into eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. …
Weekly Torah Reading, Sukkot, October 14 and 19, 2019
The Shabbat of “Booths” Sukkot is a somewhat puzzling festival. To start with, it’s not clear what the role of the sukkah (“harvest booth”) was in the biblical celebration. True, the Torah does say (Lev 23:43) that the Israelites …
Weekly Torah Reading, Haazinu, October 12, 2019
Biblical Poetry This week’s reading consists of Moses’ farewell song, known in Hebrew by its first word Ha’azinu (“Give ear!”). In it, Moses recounts Israel’s prior history, starting back in “days of yore,” when things were fine, but then …
Weekly Torah Reading, Vayyerlekh, October 5, 2019
Moses Didn’t Want to Die In this week’s Torah reading, God instructs Moses that the time has come for him to die—in fact, He says this more than once. The reading opens with Moses relating that “the Lord said …
Weekly Torah Reading, Vayyelekh, October 5, 2019
Moses Didn’t Want to Die In this week’s Torah reading, God instructs Moses that the time has come for him to die—in fact, He says this more than once. The reading opens with Moses relating that “the Lord said …
Weekly Torah Reading, Ki Tavo, September 21, 2019
In Seventy Languages In this week’s reading, the Israelites are about to enter the promised land. At this crucial point, they are given an odd instruction: On the very day that you cross the Jordan River, set up some large …
Weekly Torah Reading, Ki Tetze, Sept 14, 2019
(Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19) This week’s reading is full of commandments, more than any other reading in the annual cycle. They cover all sorts of things that can arise in daily life, governing relations between husbands and wives, parents and …
Weekly Torah Reading, Shofetim, September 7, 2019
A Hollow Ring I suspect many speakers of modern Hebrew are fooled by the second word in this week’s Torah reading. In today’s Israel, shoterim are policemen—and this same root also underlies the collective mishtarah, “police.” But there were …