Listen to an audio version Parashat Chukat is among the most enigmatic in all of Torah. While it gives closure to the lives of Moses siblings, it opens three new mysteries in the fabric of Israel’s, story, a peculiar ordinance,…
Tag: Bamidbar
Korach – You Say You Want a Revolution
Do you ever have, as one children’s book would describe it, a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”? Well, Moses sure did. In fact, it must have seemed to him like he had fourteen thousand six hundred days…
Shelach Lecha – Monsters, Giants and Other Formidable Obstacles
In the spring of 2002 I went to an art exhibit that was featuring a grouping of pictures painted by a good friend who was beginning the process of leaving the safety of a career as a commercial artist…
B’halot’kha – Salvation On Trial
This week’s parasha will introduce a theme that will characterize much of the remaining narrative of Bamidbar. Chapters 11-25 contain a series of refusals on the part of Israel to accept authority. In chapter 12 even Miriam challenges Moses’ authority.…
Bamidbar – Wildfire, Water and the Wilderness
Listen to an audio version This week we embarked upon our annual reading of Bamidbar. The fourth book of the Torah is so named since it begins “Vay’daber Adonai el-Mosheh b’midbar Sinai (And the LORD spoke to Moses in the…
The Hallmark of Equality
This week’s portion, Shelach Lecha contains some obvious themes within a familiar narrative. Be bold! Do not fear! Trust God! The majority is not always right! The context of course is the twelve spies going into the land of promise…
Nasso – Bless is More
Listen to an audio version… This week’s parasha contains one of only two prescribed blessings in all of Torah, the Birkat Kohanim. This blessing is so familiar to us, it is part of the morning shacharit, and is traditionally chanted…