Mindful Torah...and more

The parashah /portion this Shabbat is Naso ( Be'midbar / Numbers 4:21 - 7:89 ). The parashah includes one of the most difficult and painful passages in the Torah, the ordeal of the Sotah , or suspected adulteress. According to the Torah if a man suspects his wife of adultery (not the other way around, since man could have many wives and have sexual relations with other women as long as they weren't betrothed or married to another man) he would bring her before the priest and there would be a ritual in which she would be made to drink the "bitter waters". This was a concoction consisting of water, dirt from the sanctuary floor and ink from a piece of parchment on which had been written the words of the curses that would befall the woman were she to be found guilty and which had just been read aloud to the woman and all those present. The parchment was then dipped in the solution. If the woman drank the bitter waters and nothing happened she would be declared innocen...

In the Jewish calendar we begin counting 7 weeks from the second day of Passover. After the 7 weeks have ended, on the 50 th day, we celebrate the festival of Shavuot (weeks). In the Torah this festival is simply considered one of the three Pilgrimage Festivals, along with Pesakh /Passover and Sukkot . However, in later Rabbinic times, it became associated with the giving of the Ten Commandments, as this seminal mythic event had no festival of its own. However, it was not just the giving of the Ten Commandments that occurred at Sinai. For according to the rabbis of old, the entire Torah and all of its subsequent interpretations (referred to as the “oral Torah”) were also given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In other words, all that ever was and ever will be said was given by God at that auspicious moment at Sinai.This year, the festival of Shavuot began at sundown on Saturday and either ended tonight at sundown or will continue through tomorrow at sundown, depending on one's cus...

The name of this week's parashah /portion, and the fourth book of the Torah, is Be'midbar which means "in the wilderness"  (Be’midbar /Numbers 1:1 - 4:20). A rabbinic commentary points out that if we change one vowel in the name of the parashah ,  the word במדבר   be’midbar , in the wilderness, becomes be'midabeיr , or with one who is speaking. I found this ironic, since the wilderness is usually associated with silence and solitude. However, we can imagine that the wilderness of Sinai and its surroundings must have been anything but silent, with the multitudes of Israelites and others wandering through it for 40 years. However, we all know that even in the midst of a cacophony one can experience silence, just as one can experience deafening noise while walking in solitude.  What determines the silence or the solitude is not one’s physical surroundings, but one’s inner state. This poem uses the two different readings of the letters ...

This week we conclude the reading of the book of Leviticus/ Va'yikra with the reading of the double parashah/portion Behar-Behukotai (Vayikra/Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34).  I would like to focus primarily on a concept found in the first part, Parshat Behar .  For in Behar , God gives Moses the instructions concerning the Sabbatical/ Shabbaton and the Jubilee/ Yovel .  Moses is told that, once they are settled in the land of Canaan, every seventh year the land must "rest" completely. One is not allowed to plant, sow or reap at all.  No real harvest may take place.   The people may gather whatever grows from plants seeding themselves the previous year, but that is all. They are not to sow or reap anything. Just as the people need a rest every seven days, so too the land needs a Shabbat in order to replenish itself. After the conclusion of seven cycles of seven years,  in the 50th year the Jubilee/Yovel is to be announced with the blast of a shofar....

 Note:  I apologize for not being consistent with my psalm commentaries, I will try to improve on this.  In the meantime, we are still looking at the traditional Psalm for Wednesday.  I hope you find this meaningful.  spn   לְהַשְׁקִ֣יט   לֹ֖ו   מִ֣ימֵי   רָ֑ע   עַ֤ד   יִכָּרֶ֖ה   לָרָשָׁ֣ע   שָֽׁחַת [verse 12 - Happy is the one who is chastened by God, and those whom You teach from Your Torah,...] ... may you grant them quiet from the days of adversity [or bad days] until a pit is dug for the wicked. I have included verse 12 in this translation because in English it really forms the first half of the verse.  In my blog commentary on verse 12 (Dec.21, 2011) I write about the connecting the concept of  chastisement with learning a life lesson. I also related it to how mindfulness practice can teach us as well. However,  I can't help but notice that, read as one long verse, it expresses the ...

This week we read the double portion/ parashah of Aharei Mot-Kedoshim ( Vayikra /Leviticus 16:1-20). These two portions contain numerous mitzvot / commandments, some of which make sense to us today, some which don't, and some which are totally antithetical to what we view as righteousness and justice. This includes the "holiness code" in chapter 19 which includes the commandment "you shall be holy, for I, the Eternal your God, am holy" as well as "you shall love your fellow human being as yourself."  This section is viewed by our tradition as the center of the Torah.  Indeed, it is actually located almost at the center of the scroll itself.                                               Though some of the prohibitions in the parashah...