Libi BaMizrach

Parshat Tzav, Pesach, and the Daf Yomi Moment As we prepare for Pesach and remove chametz from our homes, Parshat Tzav presents us with a striking paradox. The Torah’s central offering of gratitude—the Korban Todah —is brought not with matzah alone, but with both chametz and matzah:  “A l challot lechem chametz yakriv Korbano ” (Vayikra 7:13). At the very moment we are eliminating chametz from our lives, the Torah tells us that true thanksgiving requires it.  And for many of us, we are not only encountering the Todah in the weekly parashah, but in Daf Yomi as well. These very sugyot —the structure of the Todah, its forty loaves, the balance between chametz and matzah —are being learned right now, giving this idea a second point of entry: not only through the parashah, but through the daily rhythm of learning. For anyone preparing for Pesach, this combination is almost jarring. The very substance we are about to eliminate so carefully becomes part of the Torah’s central expre...

Parshat Vayikra opens the grand topic of Korbanot — a world that, while foundational to Torah, can feel distant in practice. Yet this is precisely the avodah for which we daven daily: רְצֵה ה' אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ בְּעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבִתְפִלָּתָם, וְהָשֵב אֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה לִדְבִיר בֵּיתֶךָ וְאִשֵּי יִשְׂרָאֵל Hashem our God. please desire Your people Israel and their prayers; restore the service to the inner chamber of Your House and the offerings of Israel This demands clarification. When we ask for the return of the avodah , what exactly are we asking to be restored?  Can we really relate to the idea of offering animals and bringing flour offerings as way of serving Hashem? Chazal frame Korban ot not merely as ritual, but as Avodat Ha’adam — a process that transforms the individual. The Ramban (Vayikra 1:9) explains that the actions performed upon the Korban are meant to awaken in a person the realization that, in strict justice, what is being done to the animal ought to have been...

Life in Israel over the past few weeks has developed a strange new rhythm. Usually, there is first a warning — a message on the phone that something may be coming — and then, sometimes minutes later, the siren cuts through the ordinary sounds of the day. Conversations stop mid-sentence, children are quickly gathered, and people step outside and make their way down the street to the public shelter. The door closes behind us, and for a few minutes we sit together waiting for the all-clear. Sometimes it is only a single siren, and a few minutes later everyone returns home. Other times, another siren follows, and then another, and we remain there longer than expected, listening, waiting, and checking our phones to see what may come next. The first time this new rhythm became real for me was on a recent Shabbat morning. We were standing in shul listening to the reading of Parshat Zachor , the Torah’s command never to forget Amalek — the embodiment of cruelty without conscience and hatred w...

I write these words on Motzaei Shabbos after a Shabbos unlike most others. Throughout the day, sirens sounded again and again across Israel. Families rose from their Shabbos tables, zemiros stopped mid-song, and once more we made the now-familiar walk toward stairwells and bomb shelters. Doors closed behind us. Phones remained silent. Information was scarce. We sensed that something serious was unfolding—likely connected to Iran—but in truth, we did not know what was happening. Some people were frightened. Others were deeply unsettled. Yet most of us did what Israelis have learned, through long and difficult experience, to do. We gathered our families, walked calmly to safety, and placed ourselves in the hands of the Ribbono Shel Olam. As Shabbos observers, we were careful not even to ask those who might have heard the news for updates. We chose, consciously, to live with uncertainty rather than compromise the sanctity of Shabbos. And so we sat together without information, without ...

This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, is almost entirely devoted to clothing. Not ordinary clothing. The Bigdei Kehunah — the priestly garments — described in painstaking, almost overwhelming detail. Fabrics, colors, threads of gold, precise measurements, engraved stones, woven patterns. Page after page of wardrobe specifications. Make holy garments for your brother Aharon, for honor and for splendor  (Shemot 28:2). Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch notes that K avod — honor — expresses the essential moral and spiritual content of a person’s character. Tiferet — splendor — is the external beauty that makes that inner character visible and esteemed as it should be. The garments were not mere decoration. They were a visible manifestation of the meaning of the Kehunah itself. In fact, the garments were not optional. A Kohen who performed the service without them was disqualified. Without the garments, he was just another individual acting out of personal impulse. The sanctuary was not meant ...

The Ten Commandments occupy a unique and exalted place in the Torah. Much has been written by our sages about why these ten, of all mitzvot, were chosen to be proclaimed at Sinai and engraved on the Tablets. Without entering that broader discussion, it is clear that their selection reflects their foundational role in shaping Jewish belief and moral life. Some of the commandments are readily understood. Others require deeper reflection. Perhaps the most difficult of all is the final one: Lo Sachmod — “You shall not covet.” What does this commandment actually demand of us? What if a thought simply pops into my head: My neighbor has a beautiful home, a car, a cow — or even a wife — and I wish that were mine. Have I already transgressed the prohibition against coveting? I can’t help it! My brain is wired this way. I see something, I like it, I wish it were mine. What fault is it of mine that the thought arose at all? Isn’t that just simple human nature? This is a classic question, raise...

On a recent visit to the United States, I felt an unfamiliar disorientation. It began with the mundane: a quick trip to the grocery store and the shock of seeing how much more expensive everything felt compared to just a year or two ago. But it was a frum podcast that truly unsettled me. The hosts casually asserted that an average Orthodox family earning less than $250,000 annually is not merely struggling but verging on poverty — and that true financial security requires at least $400,000 a year. I listened, baffled. I have never earned anything close to that so-called “poverty line,” and yet I raised five children, paid tuition, married them off, and even managed to send some to camp. My instinct was to dismiss the discussion as an affluent echo chamber — the language of a small segment of the community projected onto everyone else. Conversations with friends, relatives, and acquaintances quickly disabused me of that notion. Far from rejecting the figure, many endorsed it, describi...