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Adina Gerver: Behar-Bechukotai Ethical Consumption

Adina Gerver summarizes the parashah simply: God promises agricultural abundance during the 7th year, which should invoke compliance. If this promise is not adequate for compliance, Bechukotai provides the warning of what comes next. The poetic pairing of reward and punishment in our relationship with the earth continues. Today we find Talmudic loopholes that allow us to continue in our disregard for the earth. Yet the truth of climate change today poses a major threat to us.

Rabbi Daniel Nevins: Behar-Bechukotai Remember the Land

Rabbi Nevins writes that the capacity for humanity to ruin and be exiled from the earth was found millennia ago, in this Torah portion. In Leviticus, the land is a central character, even more so than the Sanctuary. In Leviticus 26:42, the text reads “…and I will remember the Land”, giving it a status similar to the 3 patriarchs. The Land is not just a place to live, but an intermediary to encounter God.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z/l: Behar-Bechukotai The Chronological Imagination

Rabbi Sacks writes that reality has many dimensions, but we cannot grasp them simultaneously – they are too complex. But we can think about them sequentially. This is chronological imagination. The Torah presents a sequential worldview, which is aptly described by the shema – listen, hear, understand, respond.

Liora Ramati: Emor

Liora Ramati writes that the verb daber is reiterated 3 times, for present, future, and past. The reason is that Moses was instructed to command the kohanim about impurity in a whisper; the priests must be able to direct their hearts when blessing Israel. The Kohanim were held to a higher standard of holiness than the rest of the community.

Union for Progressive Judaism Emor

The rabbi writes about the challenge of ritual impurity, and the problems with translation of the term tamei. He challenges the concept of contamination from contact with a corpse, instead writing about the beauty of a peaceful death.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z’l: Emor Faith as a Journey

Rabbi Sacks cites Rashbam, who interpreted Succot as a reminder of the humble origins of the Jewish people, an antidote to the risks of affluence. The real challenge to the Israelites was not the dangers of the wilderness, but the sense of wellbeing and security they would develop after they settled in the Promised Land.

Devir Kahan: Kedoshim The Challenging Requirement to “Be Holy”

Devir Kahan cites Rashi, who interpreted the commandment to avoid illicit sexual relations and sinful thoughts. He asks, why does Rashi rely solely on texts related to the kohanim, and why this interpretation here when the Torah prohibits illicit sexual relations in so many other parts? The answer lies in an analysis of the “fences around the Torah”.

Professor Raymond Scheindlin: Adhere Mot – Kedoshim How to be Holy

Professor Scheindlin comments on Chapter 19 of Leviticus, which comes with a temporary reprieve from the endless ritual instructions, and begins with the statement “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” He is concerned with the difference between the commandment to “be holy”, rather than “to be moral”. Furthermore, the Torah commands us to beware of the holy, as with Nadav and Avihu.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z/l: Acharei Mot – Kedoshim Of Love and Hate

Rabbi Sacks observes that it is natural to feel aggrieved when someone has hurt us. How are we to fulfill the common “Do not hate your brother in your heart?” The Torah instructs us to interact; to speak, challenge, or remonstrate. The ultimate goal is to use the power of speech to sustain and mend relationships.

Rabbi Hillel Lavery-Yisraeli: Tazria-Metzorah Disease as Punishment?

Rabbi Lavery-Yizraeli writes that tzara’at is not a medical condition, even though it seems like it is. Only the Kohen diagnoses, and a Kohen cannot diagnose for himself. In fact, without a qualified Kohen, the tzara’at cannot exist, because it requires the Kohen’s declaration. Slander is actually considered to be the cause of it, rather than another type of exposure.

Rabbi Sacks-Mintz: Tazria – Metzora

Rabbi Mintz writes that, despite post-biblical and contemporary thought, judgments of impurity that are affiliated with “uncleanness”, or “sinfulness” related to the chata’at are not in accordance with the text. In fact, tuma’a is not connected to demonic forces, nor dirt or infection, but simple nature; tangible realities of the human condition juxtaposed with the Divine.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z/l: Tazria – Metzorah

Rabbi Sacks addresses the challenge of ritual impurity by citing Rambam. Rambam writes that a person cannot be flesh and blood, without also being subject to external influences. As Rabbi Sacks continues, Judaism eschews both hedonism and asceticism; by sanctifying the physical, the human life becomes a vehicle for the Divine Presence.

Rabbi Mordecai Finley: Parashat Shemini Aaron’s Silence

Rabbi Finley avoids any assessment of guilt in the narrative of Nadav and Avihu. As he reiterates, the Torah does not actually indicate why they performed this act, nor what they were thinking at the time. He observes that no one can be ready for when a seemingly minor infraction results in a disaster. The danger is in the slightest moment of inattention, that can have unforeseen consequences.

Matthew Berkowitz: Parashat Shemini Lesson’s of Leadership

Matthew Berkowitz cites Samson Raphael Hirsch, who wrote that Nadav and Avihu acted only an individual members of the nation, without consulting either Aaron or Moses. In this regard they were selfish. He also cites Richard Elliot Friedman, who wrote that the standard for leaders is tougher than for others, and Aaron’s pain is a reminder of that.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z’l: Parashat Shemini Fire: Holy and Unholy

Rabbi Sacks considers the striking tragedy of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu. He writes about the nature of holiness: a point of time and space in which the Presence of God is encountered by tzimtzum—self-renunciation—on the part of humankind. God’s Presence can only be experienced as absolute through the total renunciation of human will and initiative.

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