A Quick Torah Thought

The Ramban states that there is only one open miracle in the Torah that is part of the fabric of everyday life – and that is finding out the adulterous woman! Nothing more and nothing less than having her drink bitter waters, that taste like ink, the flavor of Hashem's name being erased, careening through her intestines. The bitterness, writes the Ramban, comes up to her lips at the same time as her hips, the place where she sinned, dislocate, and her inner organs distend and spew out of her body. Why is adultery such a grave sin – one of the Ten Commandments – and if God had to choose one open miracle, why did it have to be this? Shlomo Hamelech prays to Hashem when he consecrates the Beit Hamikdash that all prayers come to that place and even if a person can't seek justice within the normal legal realm, Hashem should hear his prayer and do justice by him. It would seem, thus, that the reason is two-fold. Both for the one above, that a man really can't know if his wife has...

What's the biblical word for role? It's not what you would think! The word used for the role the Levites were tasked with is mishmeret or watch. They had to keep "their watch," in essence guarding and protecting the Jewish people by ensuring that no one who wasn't a Levite approached. There was a protective encampment around the Mishkan , the holy tabernacle, with the Levites' mere presence, symbolically and spiritually guarding the entirety of the Jewish people from either attack or moral decay. It was only the Levites who could do so after the firstborns had egregiously sinned and erred in the worship of the Golden Calf; this past week's parsha details the redemption of the firstborns and the very transfer of that holiness to the Levite tribe. The Levites, thus, had a role that only they could do, one that was inimitable, unable to be performed by any other. The word used for that construct is very telling and likewise bespeaks the unique role t...

The forefathers all had slaves. Upon the Jewish people's entry to the Land of Israel they are commanded to take slaves from the locals, but not from their brethren. Solomon's greatness - and praise - in the Book of Kohelet was his sheer multitude of slaves, and so, how can we understand the pervasiveness of slavery in the Bible, and yet our own abhorrence to the very idea? One approach could be to talk about how slaves – at least, Jewish ones – were treated better in Biblical times than our modern-day experience of slavery, its aftermath, lynching and the Jim Crow laws being bad enough. The sages do teach about the more sensitized approach in Judaism to slaves than in other religions. For example, were a master to have one comfortable bed, his Jewish slave would get it before him, to the point that they come up with the famous saying, "One who purchases a slave, has essentially purchased a master to lord over him." At the same time, that doesn't fully tackle o...

A Kohen is obligated to oversee the burial of 6 different blood relations; his parents, his son and daughter, and brother, and sister, who had "never had relations with a man." In addition, a Kohen may become impure to bury his wife.  The salient question is what happens to the closeness between brother and sister once she loses her virginity.  It would seem difficult to suggest that there's a wedge between the two of them as a result of her intercourse with a man; it could also be that as the years go on, and perhaps she and he have children of their own that they in fact feel greater closeness, their children – cousins – growing up together, with the sorrow the man feels upon one day losing his sister becoming even more pronounced.  I'd like to suggest that the Torah view on burial was one of responsibility. A man is always responsible for his parents, and – we should not know such suffering – one's children. A brother is also under one's domain and as...

Parshat Kdoshim makes us think twice about how we treat people who are mean to us. "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow man as yourself: I am Hashem." The sages teach that taking a revenge takes the following pattern. One man asks his fellow man to lend him a sickle because his has broken and he needs to harvest his wheat and trim the weeds that threaten his wheat. His friend says no. A month later the same scenario plays out, just this time, the one who refused needs one himself. His friend says no. Why, he asks himself, would he lend his friend a sickle if his friend didn't lend him one? The rationale even makes sense. In the business world, there's a new term, "coopetition," companies usually do compete but sometimes cooperate for their mutual benefit. The thinking makes sense when it comes to the nitty gritty of human relations; Nobel Prize winner, Professor Israel Aumann talks about w...

One with tzara'at who must leave the camp to become purified must call out upon his exit, "Impure, Impure." Tame, Tame Yikra . I am impure, I am impure. We are society that never tries to spotlight other's weaknesses or handicaps, and at least here in Israel, where a good number of soldiers have lost limbs in battle, we obviously try to avert our eyes, and not stare at what for them represents a very dear loss. With that in mind, we all know the feeling when we're caught looking, at someone else's malady, or infirmity – or perhaps, more often, handicap. And so, why is it that here, in a case that is inimitable – really, without comparison, we ask the person to not only call attention to his deformity but insist that it be part of his purification process? It would seem, as our Sages teach us, that the person with this malady NEEDS to leave the camp to become whole again. As such, part of the process requires a certain recognition, and even dependency o...