To the reader unaware of the divisions of the Torah, the end of Parshat Behar seems odd. Instead of ending at the sensible conclusion of chapter 25, the portion ends after the first two verses of chapter 26. What the untrained reader does not know is that chapters and...
“You shall take choice flour and bake of it twelve loaves, two-tenths of a measure for each loaf. Place them on the pure table before God in two rows, six to a row” (Leviticus 24:5-6). While the instructions are clear, the purpose is unstated. Though the Talmud...
American military hero, General George Patton notoriously said to his troops that the objective in battle is not to die for your country but to get the enemy (Patton used more colorful language) to die for his. The context is different but the underlying message of...
In a series of chapters concerning all manner of afflictions, Nahmanides notices something curious. Leviticus 12 begins with God addressing Moses with regard to the status of the birthing mother. Leviticus 13 begins with God addressing Moses and Aaron concerning a...
If there is a motto to be ascribed to the Torah it would be “Be sure before you act.” That is certainly the message of the Torah early on when God states that He “will go down to see” if the misconduct of the inhabitants of Sodom is as bad as thought (Genesis....
The challenge in reading the detailed descriptions of the rituals regarding sacrifices is to find within them some meaningful insights that transcend the rituals that are no longer practiced. Those who succeed find the exercise rewarding. Those who fail, tend to...
Professor Jacob Milgrom offers a surprising explanation of the purpose of the book of Leviticus. While the text centers mostly on priestly laws, the subtext is the eradication of pagan religion (Leviticus, p. 8ff). The basic premises of pagan religion, Milgrom writes,...
In their book Noise, authors Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein describe how the universal passion for judicial discretion fell out of favor in the 1970’s. For many years the popular idea was that maximizing judicial discretion allowed judges to...
The sacral calendar in chapter 23 of the Book of Leviticus includes mention of what is subsequently called Yom Kippur. It is intended to be a day of “affliction” as well as a day of cessation from labor (Lev. 23:27-28). But what, exactly, constitutes “affliction” goes...
The Torah emphatically teaches that “the alien must not be wronged” (Leviticus 19:32). The Hebrew word for alien is “ger.” The quintessential Biblical commentator, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes, known by his acronym RaShI (1040–1105), notes that the word “ger” is...