by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | May 9, 2025 | Lifeline
In between instructing us regarding Kosher food and forbidden relationships, Hashem, in our reading this week, gives us a more general instruction: “According to the behavior of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelled, you shall not do, and like the behavior of...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | May 2, 2025 | Lifeline
Our combined reading this week, of the portions Tazria and Metzorah, speaks a great deal about types of purity and impurity. Even something as beautiful as childbirth means that the mother is no longer carrying the baby, and that brings with it impurity. But there is...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Apr 3, 2025 | Lifeline
Our reading begins, “And He [G-d] called to Moshe, and Hashem spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying…” [1:1] The first word of this book, that which identifies the Sefer as “Vayikra,” is traditionally written with an unusally small letter Aleph at the end...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Mar 28, 2025 | Lifeline
We learn this week that after all of the instructions, and all of the work done to build the Tabernacle and its holy vessels, the Tabernacle was finally erected and put into service on the first day of Nissan in the year following the Exodus from Egypt. The Medrash...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Mar 14, 2025 | Lifeline
Today is a special Purim for residents of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Our set calendar was designed such that Purim can never be on Shabbos—except in Jerusalem (and other cities surrounded by walls back in the time of Joshua). The Purim story tells us that Shushan,...
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Feb 28, 2025 | Lifeline
Our reading this week begins with Hashem’s instruction to Moshe to “take for Me an offering” (Ex. 25:2). The Yalkut asks, as King David wrote in Tehillim (Psalms), “to Hashem is the land and all its fullness” (24:1). Hashem doesn’t...
