It occurred to me this week that we’re already a month into the book of Vayikra and I haven’t spoken about it all. Parashat Vayikra was the Shabbat HaGadol Derasha, Parashat Tzav was at 7:15 in the morning and there was no Derasha, and then Shmini was last week and I spoke about something else.
It’s not that I’m avoiding it. Sometimes people think that Vayikra is a...Read more...
I want to share something about the Parasha from R’ Nota Greenblatt, z”l, whose Yahrzeit is coming up this week, and then relate it to events this coming week.
R’ Nota has only one Sefer. It’s on the Chumash. One of the things he says in Shmini relates to an interesting question. He was asked by someone about a strange thing that the Torah does in this week’s...Read more...
Some background: There are two types of Midrash. There is the Midrash -- more familiar to everyone -- with sometimes creative stories which highlight aspects of the narrative of the Torah. But there is a second kind of Midrash, in which we learn Halachot out of the verses of the Torah. It reads much like certain technical sections of the Talmud, and even overlaps with it, as they both derive Halachot from verses of...Read more...
There might be many reasons why this day would feel extra. But there’s a real reason why it seems extra, and that is because nothing anticipated it. In contrast, what happened in Egypt to the Jews was foretold. It did not have to take place in Egypt but Avraham Avinu was told that there would be servitude and that there would be affliction. All of those things were going to happen. Once they were...Read more...
