Behar

June 21, 2022

The Moral, the Political, and the Partisan

This was the D’var Torah I gave for Parashat Behar on May 21, 2022. The original text is below; an adaptation is in the video here, slightly updated in the fall of 2025. Whenever people suggest that Judaism could be separate from politics, I think about this week’s parasha. The Shabbaton and the Yovel (the… Continue reading

Behar, Community Relations, Current Affairs, Election, Ethics, Exodus, Freedom, Justice, Leadership, Middot, Parashat Hashavua, Spirituality, Teshuvah, Tikkun Olam, Torah, Tzedakah, Tzedek, USA
July 20, 2021

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — A Map of Spring and Summer 2021

I've been wanting to get this down for weeks…. I’ve been very affected since March by Torah time – by how the cycle of reading the Torah in synagogue has mapped onto our experience of the pandemic since its one-year anniversary. The first anniversary of the formal declaration of the pandemic and the massive shut-downs… Continue reading

B’haalotcha, B’midbar, Behar, Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Elul, High Holidays, Holidays, Ki Tetze, Ki Tissa, Korach, Leadership, Mas’ei, Mattot, Metzora, Naso, Numbers, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Pekudei, Pinchas, Re’eh, Rosh Hashanah, Shmini, Shoftim, Study, Tisha B’Av, Torah, USA, Vayakhel, Vayikra, Yamim Noraim
May 9, 2014

E-Maggid: What Shall We Eat?

From the insights of the Netivot Shalom ("Paths of Peace") from Rav Shalom Noach Barzovsky, the Slonimer Rebbe: In this week's parasha, Behar, we learn the mitzvah of the Shabbaton – the sabbatical of the land. Every seventh year, the Land of Israel is to rest. People are to eat simply what grows naturally from the land in that year.… Continue reading

Behar, E-Maggid, Food, Parashat Hashavua, Spirituality
May 12, 2011

Parashat Behar: Redeeming Coupons, Redeeming the World

My rav at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Gordon Tucker, once said in class that Parashat Behar is the most profound biblical text about redemption. (Rabbi Tucker, who was the dean at the time, is something of a genius. In his seminar, he would take the chit-chat of the group as we entered class about… Continue reading

Behar, Parashat Hashavua
May 6, 2010

Behar/B’chuoktai: That You May Live on the Land

At first reading, the two parashiyot that are combined this week seem like a divine split personality. Behar ("At the mountain [of Sinai]") is the most utopian parasha in all of Torah after Genesis 1, in which "God saw and, look, it was very good" — all of Creation! Behar imagines a land in which… Continue reading

B’chukotai, Behar, Environment, Parashat Hashavua
May 20, 2009

Parashat Behar — Jack Kemp, Housing, and Torah

Jack Kemp died just a couple weeks ago, on May 2. I thought of the long-time conservative political leader as I studied Parashat Behar last week. I've always considered Jack Kemp to be one of my influences, as someone who came of age in the 1980s, because of the particular kind of free-market conservatism he… Continue reading

Behar, Current Affairs, Justice, Money, Parashat Hashavua, Tikkun Olam, Tzedakah, Tzedek

Behar

The Moral, the Political, and the Partisan

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — A Map of Spring and Summer 2021

E-Maggid: What Shall We Eat?

Parashat Behar: Redeeming Coupons, Redeeming the World

Behar/B’chuoktai: That You May Live on the Land

Parashat Behar — Jack Kemp, Housing, and Torah