A Quick Torah Thought

Why did Moshe fail to convince Yitro to join the Jewish people in the desert? Moshe's argument seemed very cogent: it will benefit both of us. You'll get all the good stuff has promised us in the land of Israel, and we'll benefit from your perceptiveness – in Moshe's words, "You know how we've camped in the desert and you'll serve as a set of eyes for us." Those words, "a set of eyes," seem baffling. Is that part of Moshe's attempt to persuade Yitro? Rashi most certainly takes that approach. "You've seen with your very own eyes how Hashem has graced our desert encampment with one miracle after the next, and if you stay with us, you will most certainly from that good grace." Rashi seems to stray very much from the simple meaning of the text, because those words serve as part of the plea, i.e. Moshe is saying we need you, and not you need us. So why wasn't Yitro convinced? Where did Moshe Rabbeinu's persuasiven...

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...