The Sages understood tsara’at , the theme of this week’s parsha, Metzora, not as an illness but as a miraculous public exposure of the sin of lashon hara , speaking badly about people.
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By Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt"l
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4/17/24
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T he primary focus of our parasha, Tazria, is the illness known as tzaraat . In his commentary on the Torah, the Rashbam presents the unique nature of this disease:
All of the sections dealing …
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By Rabbi David Etengoff
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4/10/24
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I created a program several years ago called ParshaDrama, in which I go to a school and present the weekly Torah portion to different grades through a combination of storytelling and dramatics, …
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By Rabbi Avi Billet
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4/10/24
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There was a time when I would only go out of my way to listen to speakers who were older and more experienced than I. Recently, however, I changed my preferences and began to seek out rabbis and …
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By Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
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4/10/24
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I t was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tsara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Tazria and Metzora as …
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By Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt"l
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4/10/24
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Years ago, I had the opportunity to take a long-overdue vacation with my family in Walt Disney World. For our children, who had just spent the better part of a year dealing with the day-to-day …
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By Binny Freedman
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4/3/24
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He was an old man, and in many ways came from a very different world than I. And yet he taught me more than anyone else ever did. One of the things he taught me was that no one suffers as much as a …
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By Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
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4/3/24
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Shemini tells the tragic story of how the great inauguration of the Tabernacle, a day about which the Sages said that G-d rejoiced as much as He had at the creation of the universe, was overshadowed …
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By Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks zt"l
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4/3/24
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Whenever I come across the word “v’nikhrita” (and he/she/they will be cut off from the Jewish people) in the Torah, I marvel over where such a notion stands in the 21st century …
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By Rabbi Avi Billet
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3/27/24
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L ike much of sefer Vayikra, our parasha, Tzav, focuses on the korbanot . Accordingly, the second verse presents the mitzvah of the korban olah:
“Command ( tzav ) Aharon and his sons, …
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By Rabbi David Etengoff
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3/27/24
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