RELEASE MY CHAINS “Noah built an altar to the Lord, and he took from every pure animal and from every pure bird, and sacrificed burnt offerings on the altar.” (Bereishit 8:20) What was the purpose of the offerings that Noah brought on his altar after leaving the...

“GONE IS THE JOY OF OUR HEARTS, OUR DANCING HAS TURNED INTO MOURNING.” (EICHA 5:15) When the prophet Jeremiah uttered these words, he could have been referring to Shabbat 22 Tishrei 5784, corresponding to the seventh of October 2023. That was the day on which Israeli...

KEEP IT SIMPLE “He (Moshe) said: The Lord came from Sinai, and shone from Se’ir for them. He appeared from Mount Paran, and He came with some of the holy myriads. From His right [He brought] a fiery law to them.” (Devarim 33:2) In the opening verses...

THE TIME OF OUR REJOICING “You shall take for you on the first day the fruit of a pleasant tree, branches of date palms, a bough of a leafy tree and willows of the brook. You shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.” (Vayikrah...

“Yom Kippur does not atone for sins between man and his fellow until the [perpetrator] appeases [the victim].” (Yoma 85b) The process of returning to God involves two steps: teshuva, repentance and kappara, atonement. The first is performed by man and the second, by God. Teshuva...

THEY HEAL MY WEARY BONES “For this commandment [the Torah –see Rashi 30:14] that I command you today, it is not obscured from you and it is not distant. It is not in the heavens, to say: Who will ascend for us to the heavens and...

I GIVE YOU MY FULL SUPPORT “It shall be when you will come into the Land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it, and live in it. You shall take from the first of all the...

TYING THE KNOT “When a man takes a wife and engages in intercourse with her, it shall be that if she does not find favour in his eyes, because he found in her an indecent matter, and he wrote her a bill of divorce, and he...

THE KING AND THE SCROLL “It shall be upon his sitting on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this Torah in a scroll, from that which is before the priests, the Levites. It shall be with him, and he...

A BAND OF BROTHERS   Judaism has a complex and detailed ritual of mourning that serves to acclimatise the surviving relatives to their loss, as well as offering them support and consolation. The Torah, however, prohibits certain mourning rituals that it views as destructive and counter-productive. One...