Category: <span>Parasha</span>

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Shelach Lecha
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Shelach Lecha

CATCH 22? The recent TV adaptation of Catch 22 is receiving good reviews. Joseph Heller, in his original 1961 novel, coined the term, Catch 22, to refer to a paradoxical situation where a person can’t escape because of contradictory limitations. The phrase very quickly entered public discourse. Moses is faced with a Catch 22 situation...

Beha’alotecha
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Beha’alotecha

THE SEVEN BOOKS OF MOSES This week, we are into Beha’alotcha, the third sidra of the fourth book of the Torah, the book of Numbers or Bemidbar. Yet there is a passage in the Talmud (Shabbat 116a) that states that there are not just five books of the Torah, but seven. The extra two are...

Naso
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Naso

WAGON WISDOM With the race now on to see who will become the next leader of the Conservative Part and the next Prime Minister, the challenge for every candidate will be how to unite the party and the country and to heal the wounds of the Brexit campaign. The words of Abraham Lincoln in his...

Shavuot
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Shavuot

TORAH FROM HEAVEN The revelation at Mount Sinai was not just a religious event. It was a political event of a unique kind. It was the birth of a nation. Throughout Genesis, the heirs of Abraham had been an extended family. At the beginning of Exodus we hear them for the first time described as...

Bechukkotai
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Bechukkotai

HOW HIGH? The late Rabbi Dr. Louis Rabinowitz (1906-1984, Chief Rabbi of South Africa,) was once arriving in Israel and he saw them unload from the El Al plane two coffins that had been flown to Israel for burial. As the coffins were being carefully moved he later recalled: “At that moment I understood the...

Behar
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Behar

STRONG HOUSES Continuing uncertainty over Brexit arrangements have led to stagnations in Britain’s property market. In biblical times, over and above economic conditions, there were Torah restrictions in buying and selling land and houses in perpetuity. In summary: Land should not be sold unless there is dire need. Land sold may be redeemed after two...

Emor
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Emor

A MEETING OF MOADIM Much of this week’s portion is familiar to us as Parshat HaMoadim, the festival leining for the second of Pesach and the first two days of Succot. The special times, beginning with Shabbat and continuing with Pesach, Omer, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succot and Shemini Atzeret are listed and described....

Kedoshim
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Kedoshim

BIODIVERSITY This week, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) issued an alarming report. Hundreds of thousands of different species of animals and plants are facing extinction because of human activity. Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on...

Acharei Mot
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Acharei Mot

WHAT MAKES AN ITEM SPECIAL? This week witnessed the beginning of the enthronement of Naruhito as the new Emperor of Japan. What was striking was the simplicity of the ritual. In contrast to the coronation of a British Sovereign where fabulous jewels are part of the pomp and ceremony, unadorned wrapped boxes, containing a wooden...

Metzora
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Metzora

PRAYING FOR THOSE WHO ARE UNWELL The Torah goes into great detail in last week’s and this week’s portion describing an affliction knows as tzara’at. This came upon a person as a result of transgressions such as slander. The practical application of these laws with the different kinds of sores and scabs and burns have...