Mechon Hadar Online Learning

No words in the Torah are better known than "love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18), and no words are generally seen as more significant. And yet for all its manifest centrality in Jewish spirituality and ethics, the precise meaning of the verse is actually quite elusive. What does it mean to "love" your neighbor? Does the Torah command our emotions as well as our actions? Given emotions can't be controlled, can they even be commanded at all? Rav Shai argues that they can.

Ask a Jew about the meaning of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), and you are likely to hear that it is a day of repentance and forgiveness, a day when sins between us and God are atoned for. But it is not that simple: some interpreters suggest that we have to repent for what we have done to others before we can come before God at all. We cannot sidestep the people we have hurt on our path to God; on the contrary, God insistently directs us towards those very people.

Ask a Jew about the meaning of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement), and you are likely to hear that it is a day of repentance and forgiveness, a day when sins between us and God are atoned for. But it is not that simple: some interpreters suggest that we have to repent for what we have done to others before we can come before God at all. We cannot sidestep the people we have hurt on our path to God; on the contrary, God insistently directs us towards those very people.

Words may create worlds, as R. Abraham Joshua Heschel insisted, but they can just as surely destroy them. Words can be deadly weapons and the source of uncountable blessings. But careless, evil speech does not just affect others, it also reflects on ourselves. Reading parashat Metzora each year, tradition bids us remember that each time we speak we create the worlds we are destined to inhabit—whether for good or for bad.

Words may create worlds, as R. Abraham Joshua Heschel insisted, but they can just as surely destroy them. Words can be deadly weapons and the source of uncountable blessings. But careless, evil speech does not just affect others, it also reflects on ourselves. Reading parashat Metzora each year, tradition bids us remember that each time we speak we create the worlds we are destined to inhabit—whether for good or for bad.

Interpreters have long been perplexed by this strange set of laws at the beginning of this week's parashah. Why is a woman who gives birth considered impure? And why must she bring a chattat, or sin offering—has she done something wrong for which she must atone? Even more confusingly: why does her impurity last longer when she gives birth to a girl than when she gives birth to a boy?

Interpreters have long been perplexed by this strange set of laws at the beginning of this week's parashah. Why is a woman who gives birth considered impure? And why must she bring a chattat, or sin offering—has she done something wrong for which she must atone? Even more confusingly: why does her impurity last longer when she gives birth to a girl than when she gives birth to a boy?

What are human beings meant to eat? How does Tanakh envision an ideal human diet, and what implications—if any—should that biblical ideal have for the present? Is vegetarianism consistent with the spirit of the laws of Kashrut, as they appear in parashat Shemini? And, if vegetarianism is a messianic ideal also, should at least some Jews be vegetarian now?

What are human beings meant to eat? How does Tanakh envision an ideal human diet, and what implications—if any—should that biblical ideal have for the present? Is vegetarianism consistent with the spirit of the laws of Kashrut, as they appear in parashat Shemini? And, if vegetarianism is a messianic ideal also, should at least some Jews be vegetarian now?

The sacrificial offering associated with giving thanks to God (korban todah) differs in crucial ways from other sacrifices mentioned in the book of Leviticus: all of it must be eaten on the day and all the remainder must be burnt. What is the reason for this? And what can we learn about the nature of gratitude from this obscure detail?

The sacrificial offering associated with giving thanks to God (korban todah) differs in crucial ways from other sacrifices mentioned in the book of Leviticus: all of it must be eaten on the day and all the remainder must be burnt. What is the reason for this? And what can we learn about the nature of gratitude from this obscure detail?

Around this time each year, the eyes of many shul-going Jews begin to glaze over. The book of Leviticus seems so utterly foreign, the rituals and practices it describes so alien, the religious vision underlying them so obscure, that connecting to it seems impossible. And yet if we dig a little deeper, we find a great deal about Leviticus that can speak powerfully to modern sensibilities and yearnings.

Around this time each year, the eyes of many shul-going Jews begin to glaze over. The book of Leviticus seems so utterly foreign, the rituals and practices it describes so alien, the religious vision underlying them so obscure, that connecting to it seems impossible. And yet if we dig a little deeper, we find a great deal about Leviticus that can speak powerfully to modern sensibilities and yearnings.

There seems to be a deep connection between God's creation of the world on the one hand, and the Israelites' construction of the mishkan (tabernacle) on the other. But just what is that connection, and what is it intended to suggest? In a world overrun by chaos, a far cry from the order of God's creation, the mishkan is intended to serve as one place in which everything unfolds according to the divine plan.

There seems to be a deep connection between God's creation of the world on the one hand, and the Israelites' construction of the mishkan (tabernacle) on the other. But just what is that connection, and what is it intended to suggest? In a world overrun by chaos, a far cry from the order of God's creation, the mishkan is intended to serve as one place in which everything unfolds according to the divine plan.