torah commentary
Rabbi Nosson Sachs
May 23, 2013 | 0 
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Beha-Alotekha, Numbers 8:1-12:16 When Miriam the prophetess sinned and was afflicted with tza’raas [a spiritual ‘leprosy-like’ disease], she was required to remain outside the camp. During her re...
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May 17, 2012 | 0 | 16 |
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We live in a time of materialism. We put a value on everything, whether a financial portfolio, the financial burden and impact of welfare and food stamps, or the crushing impact on unemployment and...
May 10, 2012 | 0 | 7 |
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I write this D’var Torah on April 22. Today would have been my mother’s 95th birthday.
We celebrated my mother’s last birthday in 2005 when my family gathered for Shabbat dinner at her residence a...
May 04, 2012 | 0 | 10 |
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In order to complete the reading of the Torah in a timely way this year, it is necessary to double up certain weekly Torah readings. This week we read from a double portion, the combination of Par...
Apr 26, 2012 | 0 | 7 |
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“The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affliction on the skin of his body, it sha...
Apr 19, 2012 | 0 | 5 |
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The pursuit to find reasons for the mitzvot is long standing. As far back as the Mishna, the Talmud and Midrash, (second century B.C.E. to fifth century C.E.) the rabbis were looking for “ta’amei ...
Apr 12, 2012 | 0 | 6 |
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The regular Torah reading for the eighth day of Passover discusses the consecration of all firstborn animals to God and the festival calendar, clearly connecting to the observance of the holiday.
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Apr 05, 2012 | 0 | 7 |
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Franz Kafka, a 20th century Jewish novelist, famously wrote, “You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world. That is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature. B...
Mar 29, 2012 | 1 | 18 |
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“When do we eat?” my Aunt Florence would always ask 15 minutes after we began the seder.
It is a source a disagreement in my family whether we should start early or late on seder night. Some argu...
Mar 22, 2012 | 0 | 5 |
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As we begin to read Vayikra/Leviticus this week, we plunge immediately into the details of sacrificial worship in ancient Israel.
The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. As it became clear...
Mar 15, 2012 | 0 | 8 |
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In this Shabbat’s Torah portion, which is a combined one, we once again get a detailed description of the building of the tabernacle.
As a contemporary Jew, I used to find no meaning for myself in ...