The Pentateuch’s penultimate portion, Parashat Ha’azinu, memorializes the “Song of Moses,” canted by the great leader on the day of his death. An epic poem in six parts, Ha’azinu tells of God’s enduring relationship with Israel, unfurling their stormy entanglements into both desert past and prophetic future.
Read MoreThis week’s Dvar Tzedek was originally published in 2009. Parashat Naso provides the script for one of the more penetrating segments of the Hebrew liturgy—the birkat kohanim, or priestly blessing. Over the millennia, this benediction has remained a seminal means of invoking the Divine in both the Jewish and Christian traditions. In our parshah, God …
Read MoreParashat Vayikra catalogues the slicing, pinching, quartering, flaying, scooping, sprinkling and burning that comprised ancient Israel’s practice of korbanot—sacrifices offered in expiation, celebration or thanksgiving to God. Ritual sacrifice was a thoroughly hands-on affair, with both offeror and priest physically participating in the labor. Such gritty involvement in the process must have channeled primal drives …
Read MoreThis week’s Dvar Tzedek was originally published in 2009. Parashat Ki Tisa introduces the taboo against quantifying persons, enjoining the Israelites from giving themselves numbers. The sum of the people, it seems, is a dangerous thing—inviting evil, tempting fate, summoning the evil eye. Thus, God here commands that when Israel is to be counted the …
Read MoreThis week, we are pleased to welcome guest writer, Dvar Tzedek alumna Rachel Farbiarz. Parshat Acharei Mot details the elaborate rituals performed by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. Among the several segments of strange choreography, perhaps none is more bewildering than that of the two he-goats, donated by the Israelite community as …
Read MoreThis week, we are pleased to welcome guest writer, Dvar Tzedek alumna Rachel Farbiarz. In Parshat Vayakhel the Children of Israel built the Tabernacle. The project demanded of Israel formidable helpings of both creative energy and generosity. In the punishing desert, the people were expected to furnish a marvelous array of gold, silver, bronze, linens, …
Read MoreParshat Vayetze is the site of Jacob’s emergence into adulthood. He has left behind his parents’ home in search of his own family and fortune and, by parshah’s end, Jacob is heavy with both. It is in this interlude of maturation that we are offered precious insight into the interior force that propels our artful, …
Read MoreThe double portion of Nitzavim-Vayelech recounts Moses’s last days. Complicated to the end, Moses takes leave of his people in longing, rebuke, anger and blessing. Amidst this stormy stew, Moses offers comfort: “Be strong and resolute; be not in fear or in dread,” he implores. “For it is God who walks with you. God will …
Read MoreThe double portion of Nitzavim-Vayelech recounts Moses’s last days. Complicated to the end, Moses takes leave of his people in longing, rebuke, anger and blessing. Amidst this stormy stew, Moses offers comfort: “Be strong and resolute; be not in fear or in dread,” he implores. “For it is God who walks with you. God will …
Read MoreParshat Eikev continues Moses’s exhortation to Israel before his death. The old man cajoles, commands, promises, threatens, warns, woos and reasons. He repeats. With every rhetorical tack he can muster, Moses implores Israel to be faithful to God. Of these, one set of Moses’s end-of-life instructions arrests with the thoroughness of its charge: And you …
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