Post List

Ki Tetze

Our portion this week, Ki Tetze, connects with one of the major topics of the modern world: health and safety. Surprisingly the need to introduce health and safety laws on buildings isn’t new. Despite what we may feel about it, health and safety legislation is from Heaven and in the Torah. We are told to build a fence around a rooftop that might otherwise be a health hazard to other…

Living in the Kingdom

This portion is all about the principles of government in Israel, ‎how to rule yourselves. In Devarim 16 we are told to appoint ‎judges and officers in our gates/towns. The portion also includes ‎the crucial section on ‘a better prophet’ and how/when/if a king is ‎to be appointed. It teaches us about justice and righteousness, ‎the need for witnesses who are unbiased and truly neutral, how ‎evidence needs to be…

Mountains of Blessing

This portion begins with ‘Behold’, or possibly, ‘See this, look at this’. G-d had put before the Israelites the blessings and the curses, a choice, decisions to be made. In Hebrew the concept of ‘seeing’ is tied to understanding, as it is in English too, I see it (understand it). What was the concept the people were to see or understand? Quite a simple one really, if you follow G-d…

Parashat Eikev

This portion is called Eikev after the first few words in it, meaning ‘because of’ or consequently or as a consequence of. In its entirety, it deals with the themes of what will happen if Israel chooses to obey and of course in parallel, what will happen if not. But above all, this passage deals with the consequences of blessing! What really stopped me in my tracks were the following…

Parashat Vaetchanan

“You shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” Luke 10: 27. At the beginning of the sidra today, Moshe reminds ‘Am Yis’rael’ that he pleaded with G-d to allow him to cross the Yarden into the promised land. He then goes on to give a series of commands (mitzvot)…

Parashat Devarim: Our G-d is alive!

The final book of Torah, the Chumash begins, and it seems it’s all about repeating the Torah again, or is it? Devarim represents the closest we have to a developed Jewish biblical theology. Moshe retells the Torah in a ‘systematic’ or even ‘progressive’ way, showing how links and connections are made, and major themes drawn out. How does Torah all fit together? Two major themes come out of this first…

The ‘Real’ Promise Keepers

Most of this portion is given over to the narration of the Israelites in the process of the last stages of wilderness living; the Land is in sight and plans are being laid to take it. The time for maturity was now upon us, a time to consider what we’d learnt and how to apply it as we entered a new stage of our national development. One of the key…

Parashat Chukat

Are we nearly there yet? How many parents get tired of hearing that one?! The 40 years ‎of wandering are soon to be over, the camp of Israel is close to ‎the borders of the Promised Land, they are almost there and so ‎what happens? Throw a party to celebrate this achievement? ‎No,they grumble and complain, murmur against G-d and attack ‎Moshe and Aharon! ‎ In Numbers (B’midbar) 20:4-5 we…

Time to rejoice!

It’s a great time of year; scarcely are we past the ‘New Year’ and Yom Kippur with its deep inward soul searching, than we’re straight into a birthday celebration! So Happy Birthday Yeshua! Yosef and Miriam went up to Jerusalem as commanded at this Pilgrim festival. Miriam didn’t have to but did anyway, even in her condition, which tells you something about her devotion to God. Think about it –…

Influences (Parashat Metzora)

In the Haftorah portion attached to Metzora the thematic link of ‎the skin afflictions caused by sin, in particular the sin of lashon ‎hara (gossip, slander) is carried forward and developed into a ‎real life event .Four leprous men star during a time when famine ‎had engulfed Samaria and they in turn bring about a turning ‎point in the conflict with the Syrian army. The critical issue ‎though here is…

Weekly Drash