Yom Yerushalayim—Inhabiting the Land

Yom Yerushalayim—Inhabiting the Land

May 1, 2013 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai | Yom Yerushalayim

Our double Torah portion opens with God’s command to Moses to tell the Israelites, “When you come to the land that I am giving you, and you inhabit the land.” No sooner did I read this verse as I prepared to write these words of Torah, than my own counting of the days flashed back 46 years to my first time ever in Israel, when I was a teenager on Camp Ramah Israel Seminar.

Read More
Behar-Behukkotai

Behar-Behukkotai

Jan 1, 1980

1 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: 2 Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:

When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord.

Read More
Behukkotai

Behukkotai

Jan 1, 1980

19 O Lord, my strength and my stronghold,
My refuge in a day of trouble,
To You nations shall come
From the ends of the earth and say:
Our fathers inherited utter delusions,
Things that are futile and worthless.

Read More
Behukkotai

Behukkotai

Jan 1, 1980

3 If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, 4 I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit.

Read More
God’s Earth: Between Blessing and Curse

God’s Earth: Between Blessing and Curse

May 15, 2015 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Here is Leviticus—in many ways the most intimate of the Torah’s five books, because it usually meets us frail, mortal, human beings where we live, in our skins and with our families, in private spaces of home and tabernacle—instructing us as a society, as a species, that divine blessings of rain and sun will turn to curses if we do not do our part in stewarding God’s earth properly. The text insists that a fateful choice is in our hands. And it seems far from confident that we will make the choice wisely.

Read More