What can a debate about Hanukkah teach us about Sukkot - and what can they both teach us about religious life?
This week King Balak seeks to curse the Children of Israel, and fails. Then he does it again. And again. Why does he keep trying? A new, holistic read of the parsha may help shed some light on his strange behavior.
There were so many, out there in the desert. How did they all die?
Two new prophets appear in the camp! And they have an important message for us...
The day I fell in love with parshanut.
"What's the big deal with burning a flag?"
The Book of Leviticus seems to end with a whimper, not a bang. But the Ibn Ezra has a secret for us...
Why is a priest with a physical defect disqualified from serving? It seems terribly unfair...
The great Hassidic master, Rabbi Shlomo HaCohen Rabinowicz off Radomsk, offers us a brilliant reinterpretation.
What is the meaning of life?
Which came first: the chicken, or the egg?
Leviticus has some answers.
What is Holiness? We follow a path through the Book of Leviticus to discover a uniquely Jewish answer to the question.
Just in time for Passover, we find some matzah in the parsha.
What did Moses hear when God called out to him?
The secret of the Tabernacle - revealed!
Perhaps the breaking of the tablets was meant to teach "...a profound spiritual lesson: that religion itself can become an object of idolatry."
As a holiday approaches, we inevitably search for connections between it and the Torah portion that precedes it. But what could Parshat Tezaveh, the detailed list of the priestly garments, have to do with Purim?
Explore the mystery of the Cherubs!
In the midst of a long list of standard civil and criminal laws, we suddenly come upon a command to kill witches! What is this eerie law doing here. And is the Torah really so worried about the evil powers of witchcraft?
Why is the greatest moment of divine revelation filled with - of all things - Law?
See if you can guess the answer before the podcast is over.
How does a nation descended from immigrants treat its own foreigners? The Torah provides us with some guidance - both explicitly, and between the lines.
Let My people go!
The battle cry of the Exodus. But wait a minute? Why do we have to ask Pharaoh at all?
An answer by the 17th-century rabbi, the Kli Yakar, suggests that the freedom we are seeking may be far greater than we thought.
What do we do when a wicked king arises? This week's parsha presents us with that question, and the rabbis have some answers.
"Should our leaders be wise?"
A verse from this week's parsha provides a complicated answer.
The torah tells us that 70 of Jacob's descendants travelled together on the way down to Egypt. But if we count the names on the list, we only get 69. Who was that last traveller?
The woman between the walls.