Sprints and Marathons It was a unique, unrepeatable moment of leadership at its highest height. For forty days Moses had been communing with God, receiving from Him the Law written on tablets of stone. Then God informed him that the people had just made a Golden Calf. He would have to destroy them. It was […]
The Ethic of Holiness Kedoshim contains the two great love commands of the Torah. The first is, “Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Lev. 19:18) Rabbi Akiva called this “the great principle of the Torah.” The second is no less challenging, “The stranger living among you must be treated as your native-born. Love […]
From Priest to People Something fundamental happens at the beginning of this parsha and the story is one of the greatest, if rarely acknowledged, contributions of Judaism to the world. Until now Vayikra has been largely about sacrifices, purity, the Sanctuary, and the Priesthood. It has been, in short, about a holy place, holy offerings, […]
Love is not Enough The opening chapter of Kedoshim contains two of the most powerful of all commands: to love your neighbor and to love the stranger. “Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” goes the first. “When a stranger comes to live in your land, do not mistreat him,” goes the second, […]
Judaism’s Three Voices The nineteenth chapter of Vayikra, with which our parsha begins, is one of the supreme statements of the ethics of the Torah. It’s about the right, the good and the holy, and it contains some of Judaism’s greatest moral commands, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Let the stranger who […]
In Search of Jewish Identity The other day I was having a conversation with a Jewish intellectual and the question came up, as it often does, as to the nature of Jewish identity. What are we? What makes us Jewish? This has been one of the persisting debates about Jewish life ever since the nineteenth […]
The Scapegoat: Shame and Guilt The strangest and most dramatic element of the service on Yom Kippur, set out in Acharei Mot (Lev. 16:7-22), was the ritual of the two goats, one offered as a sacrifice, the other sent away into the desert “to Azazel.” They were to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from one another, they […]
Followership There is a fascinating sequence of commands in the great “holiness code” with which our parsha begins, that sheds light on the nature not just of leadership in Judaism but also of followership. Here is the command in context: Do not hate your brother in your heart. Reprove [or reason with] your neighbor frankly so you […]
Of Love and Hate At the center of the mosaic books is Vayikra. At the center of Vayikra is the “holiness code” (chapter 19) with its momentous call, “You shall be holy because I, the Lord your G-d, am holy.” And at the center of chapter 19 is a brief paragraph which, by its positioning, […]
The Scapegoat The strangest element of the service on Yom Kippur, set out in Acharei Mot (Lev. 16:7-22), was the ritual of the two goats, one offered as a sacrifice, the other sent away into the desert “to Azazel.” They were brought before the High Priest, to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from one another, they were […]
