Libi BaMizrach

There is a longstanding custom that Parshat Bamidbar is read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Shavuot. Various explanations are offered for this connection, but one of the most striking is also one of the simplest. The Torah was given in a desert. Not in a great city, not in a fertile or comfortable place, not in the center of civilization, but in a barren wilderness — a place empty of distraction, empty of security, empty of everything except the encounter between Klal Yisrael and the Ribbono Shel Olam . Chazal see something deeply significant in that setting. Torah can only truly be acquired, they teach, by one who is willing to make himself like a Midbar — a place not crowded with competing obsessions and endless noise. The desert represents a stripping away of distractions, dependencies, and competing preoccupations, a willingness to stand exposed before something greater than oneself. And perhaps, as we prepare for Shavuot, that raises an uncomfortable but necessary que...

 Lag BaOmer has come and gone. The bonfires have burned out, the music has faded, and for a brief moment, the heavy customs of mourning that accompany the weeks of S’firas HaOmer lifted. Weddings resumed, haircuts were taken, and there was a palpable sense of relief. And yet, for many communities, the mourning has now quietly returned. Which raises a simple but surprisingly profound question: If Lag BaOmer marks the end of tragedy – if it commemorates the day when the talmidim of Rabbi Akiva stopped dying – then why do so many continue to observe mourning even after the day has passed? The most straightforward answer is technical. Since the month of Nisan is a time of joy, during which mourning practices are avoided, some communities simply shift the 33 days of mourning to the period after Nisan. In that sense, what we are experiencing now is a kind of “make-up” period. But that explanation, while correct, feels incomplete. It tells us how the calendar works, but not why this secon...

Behar–Bechukotai and the Meaning of Our Moment In Parashat Behar–Bechukotai, we encounter one of the most sobering passages in the Torah—the Tochacha, the description of exile, suffering, and dislocation that has shaped so much of Jewish history. But suddenly, the Torah pivots from devastation to memory, from curse to covenant: “Then will I remember My covenant with Yaakov; I will remember also My covenant with Yitzchak, and also My covenant with Avraham; and I will remember the land.” (Vayikra 26:42) It is a familiar verse. But upon closer reflection, it is deeply puzzling. Why the reverse order? Why begin with Yaakov and move backward to Avraham? And why does the Torah speak of three separate covenants—“My covenant with Yaakov… My covenant with Yitzchak… My covenant with Avraham”—rather than presenting them as a single unified legacy? Three Covenants As Rav Hirsch explains, this is not merely a reference to three individuals, but to three distinct historical stages—three diffe...

Reflections on Parshat Kedoshim and Yom HaAtzmaut There is a word that appears several times in Tanach with a haunting, resonant power. In last week’s Parasha, it describes the unsettling figure of an outcast: “ Badad yeshev, michutz la’machaneh moshavo.” The metzora — often mistranslated as a leper — sits alone. Sent outside the camp, the metzora isn't just ritually "unclean." He is socially erased. He dwells in a forced vacuum, required to warn others to stay away. At the beginning of Eicha, it describes a nation: “Eicha yashva badad ha’ir rabati am.” A city once teeming with life now sits — utterly alone.  Of all the horrors that happened to Jerusalem in its destruction, the first and foremost was that it is now "alone". there is an ache of being set apart, of being kept at arm’s length by the rest of the world At first glance, these two uses of badad feel worlds apart. One is a consequence of personal failing; the other is a collective tragedy. Ye...

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...