Offerings serve a purpose, often a symbolic visual purpose, to express something that words alone cannot. Words are effective most of the time, but sometimes only the actions are adequate. The Torah describes how Levites were shaved, purified by water and sacrifice, and reborn. Does that in any way describe...
The passage called Mishpatim in Torah begins with laws about slaves and slavery. It’s not an easy topic to discuss in America. Colonial slavery most people are familiar with in America, was truly brutal, unjust, and inhumane. The mistreatment of slaves in America in the not-so-distant past still has...
In Numbers 17:7, Torah says that a cloud of God’s glory appeared all around them. God spoke to them, hiramu mitoch haedah “Get away from the midst of the assembly.” And God continued, va’akhaleh otam ke’raga “I will consume them in one moment,” or literally, “I...
Sometimes people genuinely lack humility, and they are totally unaware of it. People can be very proud and self-important, conceited, pumped up about themselves, and have an inflated view of themselves. Sometimes people are arrogant and stubborn, overconfident, snobbish, obstinate, braggadocios, and pompous. Most of us see these character qualities,...
Are you puzzled by the visions of John's Revelation? Many people find his book inspirational and very interesting, but it remains a veiled message. These are audio excerpts from several lectures I gave live on "How to Read the Book of Revelation as Jewish Literature." The...
On the one hand, Leviticus offers us dull instructions for something that does not even happen anymore. The Temple has been destroyed for almost 2000 thousand years now. But on the other hand, these instructions to Aaron show us something significant about God and his expectation of how we are...
Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, foolishly tells his dreams to his brothers. Torah tells us that the disposition of Joseph’s brothers towards him was extremely negative. In Gen 37:4 we read venisneu oto “and they hated him” velo yakhlu davro leshalom “and could not speak shalom, speak well...
Paul's letters to Rome and to Galatia were written for two different communities who had different ideas about how gentiles belonged to the Jewish church. Geography mattered, but so did the social context. This week we focus primarily on Rome and how the antagonism towards the Jews influenced...
Some people read Galatians as an anti-Jewish letter, but the key to understanding Paul's message is rooted in the Galatian context. Galatian gentile believers wanted to be circumcised to become Jews. They felt that would give them something that they otherwise did not have, but Paul tried to...