Parasha of the Week

Shmini means eight.  That so the name of this week’s Torah portion.   Why is a week seven days?  Because God created the world in seven days.  Is there any culture, anywhere on earth that does not observe a seven day week?  A more natural or obvious number would be five or ten.  Seven only makes sense coming from the Creation story.  And every place, religion, nationality, and ethnicity on earth observes the same week! Remember the tale from Genesis: God created a universe that was fully formed and then left mankind with a single task, “to till and tend it.”  In other words, our task began on the eighth day.  Seven are also the days of shivah.  When they are completed we rise up to begin life anew.  This too is the eighth day. In the mystic tradition it is said that we are now living in the eighth day.  This is humanity’s time and opportunity to perfect the worl...

There are legends that abound in our faith.  One of them is that whatever has been brought into existence can never be wiped away.  That which was, is, and will be.  It is interesting that the laws of physics state the same principle of “conservation of mass,” matter cannot be destroyed. In the parasha this week, Tzav, the Torah speaks of the fire in the altar that shall continually burn.  In the desert’s Mishkan and later in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem that same fire burned.  So what happened to that flame when the Temple was destroyed? Rabbi Morris Silverman noted that the word in the Torah used to describe the placement of the fire is  bo .   Bo indicates that the fire would burn in it (or him).  Just as matter does not disappear so our sages taught us that the fire was transferred into every Jew’s soul.  There the fire burns continually.  Each time we do a mitzvah the flames grow ...

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Zachor, so named because of the maftir reading we append to the regular Torah reading. The muftir reading commands, "Remember what Amalek did to you..." (Deuteronomy 25). Who was Amalek?  What did he do?  And why are we commanded to remember him? When the Jewish people were exiting Egypt there were suddenly attacked by an army of people under the leadership of Amalek. Ruthlessly, they cut down the weakest and most vulnerable, the aged and infirmed.  Moses, with God's intervention, stopped the attack but not before many were slain by Amalek's terror. This was the first time in Jewish history that an unprovoked attack upon our people was thrust on us.  We were bewildered. Why did he attack? What had we done to offend? What did we do to incur his wrath? The answer is nothing. We had the audacity to breathe.   The reason why we are commanded to remember this event and this man is because this was the first recorde...

The Torah reading reflects the building of the Mishkan, the Sanctuary in the desert.  Sometimes in Torah the Mishkan is also referred to as a Mishkan Edut , meaning a Sanctuary of Testimony.   The Midrash asks, to what kind of testimony did this Sanctuary attest?  They answer that it was forgiveness in the aftermath of the episode with the Goldn Calf.  It was assumed by all, that after the Israelites built this idol that they had become forever distant from God.  The Mishkan Edut was the indicator of forgiveness, moving forward in a renewed relationship.  The Israelites repented and grew. The same is true for our lives.  When something bad happens in a relationship there are tears, accusations and ultimately a letting go of the bitterness and anger.  At the same time, there must also be a change in the relation, something that will prevent that bad thing from recurring.  We grow and change from our missteps. The Sanctuary was...