This week we learn about the unusual, complicated and now extinct Torah ‘impurity’ called ‘Tzoraat’ caused by haughtiness and viciously damaging speech. But does this make sense? Tzoraat no longer exists at all, while the laws about kosher animals are very relevant. Can we really call Tzoraat the laws of man when it is extinct? • Read More

This week’s Torah reading praises the Land of Israel by saying (11:12): “A land that G-d watches constantly, the eyes of G-d are on it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.” At first glance, all this is strange. First, what does it mean that G-d looks at Israel from the beginning of the year to the end? Why doesn’t it just say “constantly”?  And why does it say that if Jews do the commandments, G-d will give Israel to Abraham, etc. Won’t G-d give it to all the Jews? And what do the commandments have to do with raising the dead? And what will the dead do with Israel? • Full Article

This week’s parsha includes three very interesting and seemingly totally impractical laws: to listen to prophets, to appoint a king and to make three additional ‘cities of refuge’ for unintentional murderers bringing the total to nine. By Rabbi Tuvia Bolton • Full Article

This week’s double section begins with the commandment of ‘Shmita’. This means that farmers in Israel can work the land only six years in a row and then must stop for one year of rest in the seventh ‘Shmita’ year. Something like the commandment to rest on the Shabbat; first we work six days then on the seventh we rest. But here it seems to be written in the wrong order! • Full Article