Parsha

Parashat Bo: Jeremiah’s timeless promise to Israel

Empires crumble, pain persists, yet Israel survives; Jeremiah’s words offer reassurance across generations.

Exodus from Egypt (Edward Poynter)
Torah scroll 521

Jacob’s warning: Enthusiasm without restraint threatens a nation - opinion

Iraqi Jews pray at the tomb of Ezekiel in Al-Kifl in southeastern Iraq on the Euphrates River, between Najaf and Al Hillah, in 1932.

When brothers reunite: Ezekiel’s prophecy and Israel’s deepest divide

‘Molten Menorah,’ by Yoram Raanan, 100x80 cm., acrylic on canvas, 2025.

Art and Torah: A molten menorah and the power of light from darkness


Parshat Shmini: The honey and the sting

The deeper lesson of the Torah’s teaching is not that one must have tragedy at the very moment of triumph, but that everything contains its opposite.

A BOY prepares to eat an apple with honey, as is traditional on Rosh Hashanah.

Parshat Shmini: Purity of the soul, restraint and humility

Kashrut is a significant part of Jewish identity. The basic principle of kashrut is that what a person puts into his body affects not only his physical health but the purity of his soul as well.

OU kashrut supervisor at work in a food manufacturing company

Parashat Vayikra: New understandings of ancient practices

With this particular book of the Bible, its focus on the sacrificial system becomes a stumbling block for many trying to derive meaning from its text.

 ‘And he shall cut it into its pieces; and the priest shall lay them, with its head and its suet, in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar’ (Leviticus 1:12). Vayikra, Leviticus 1:1-5:26, is read on March 20.

Hand, mouth or mind

There are ways to convey God's blessing even without touching.


Parashat Vayikra: ‘But I didn’t mean it!’

Four reasons, two medieval and two modern, that will help us understand something deep about the Torah and our tradition.

A 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible,was unveiled at the Museum of the Bible on November 8, 2019.

Parashat Vayikra: Standing before God

By offering a sacrifice, a person expresses the maximum nullification he can feel: giving life to God.

YEMENITE TORAH scrolls

The Golden Calf Sin: How did it really happen?

Ceremonial transitions of power and authority of an elite might be two lessons learned from the events of the Golden Calf.

PRAYING DURING the priestly blessing at the Kotel, Sukkot 2018.

Parashat Ki Tisa: Why break the tablets?

By smashing the tablets, Moses was making a declaration to all of Israel: Even the handiwork of God, which you might think of as inviolable, is nonetheless just another thing.

Marc Chagall’s ‘Moses Beholds All the Work,’ from The Story of Exodus (1966)

Parashat Ki Tisa: Sin, compassion and leadership

It is not difficult to imagine the depths of Moses’s disappointment, frustration and torment.

'The adoration of the Golden Calf’ by Nicolas Poussin

Parashat Mishpatim: The soul and the law

We went from philosophy to the budget.

An illustration of a unicorn in the 14th century Duke of Sussex Bible, held in the British Library