The Torah does not pair Parashiot at random or just out of convenience. There are thematic connections. That was obvious last week but not as obvious this week. These two Parashiot seem like they have little to do with each other. One is about Yom Kippur and the encounter between the Kohen Gadol and Hashem while the other focuses largely on issues between people. But they are profoundly...Read more...
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...
