In this week's reading, the spies were sent out to investigate the Land of Israel, to see how to enter and minimize risk. They returned with a bad report: "indeed, it is a land flowing with milk and honey," they said, even bringing back samples of the oversized fruit...

Our reading this week juxtaposes two very different things: the Sotah and the Nazir. A Sotah was a woman suspected of being unfaithful to her marital vows. If, instead of admitting what she had done, she agreed to a Divine test in the Holy Temple, then if she had not...

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 the...

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...

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 of...

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...

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,...

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 need anything from us, He already...

Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky zt"l (in his book VeHigadta) describes going to visit Rabbi Eliezer Shach, zt”l, Israel’s foremost Rosh Yeshiva [Dean of a Rabbinic seminary] at that time, while President Carter was in Israel for a state visit in 1979. He came in, and the Rosh...

In this week's reading, the Torah tells us that Moshe spread out his hand over the sea, a wind blew all through the night, the waters divided, and the Children of Israel walked through on dry ground [Ex. 14:21-22].  The Medrash, however, fills in an important...

“And I have also heard the outcry of the Children of Israel, that the Egyptians are burdening them with work” [Ex. 6:5] Rabbi Yehoshua M’Ostrov explained that Hashem was saying the following: In reality, all of the troubles and subjugation that I the Egyptians placed...

Then a new king came to power in Egypt, who did not know Joseph. “Look,” he said to his people, “the nation of the Children of Israel has become too numerous and powerful for us. Come, we must outsmart him or he will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out,...