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Featured

Holy Frustration

Holy Frustration

May 1, 2026 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Emor

Like much of Leviticus, Parashat Emor opens with yet more of these rules. But now the Torah needs to acknowledge that even when everything is in the right place, there is still death. What’s a priest to do when tragedy strikes? “Speak [Emor] to the priests, the sons of Aaron,” God tells Moses, “and say to them: None shall defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him” (Lev. 21:1). In order to stay pure, priests are limited in terms of when they can come near a dead body; even though they may mourn the death of another, the Torah says that they can only be near the corpse of a close relative. After a few terse verses about mourning practices, the Torah enumerates further rules that are meant to keep the priests and High Priest pure, with the upshot being that a priest is “holy to their God” (21:7).

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How to Be Holy

How to Be Holy

Apr 24, 2026 By Raymond Scheindlin | Commentary | Aharei Mot | Kedoshim

This week, we read two parashiyot from Leviticus: Aharei Mot and Kedoshim. Taken together, they cover five clearly defined topics. Aharei Mot deals with the rituals of the high priest on Yom Kippur; regulations governing the slaughter of animals for food and sacrifice; and the prohibition of various sexual relations, especially incest. This last subject is resumed at the end of Kedoshim. Between the two discussions of sexual relations is the famous Chapter 19, which opens Kedoshim. This chapter stands out from the rest of our double parashah—in fact, from the rest of the book of Leviticus. It is a reprieve from the seemingly endless ritual instructions, most of which are no longer applicable, that make up the bulk of the book; and, though Chapter 19 does include some important ritual instructions, it is mostly devoted to the kind of rules for life that should govern every well-organized society, rules that people of most cultures and religions have tried to inculcate for everyone’s benefit.

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Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Gender Inside and Outside the Camp

Apr 17, 2026 By Joy Ladin | Commentary | Metzora | Shabbat Rosh Hodesh | Tazria

Most benei mitzvah would do anything to avoid having to talk about Parashat Tazria-Metzora, a section of the Torah that focuses communal attention on intimate changes in human bodies. In Leviticus 13, God orders Israelites to notice and monitor intimate changes in one another’s bodies—menstruation, discharges, eruptions, inflammations, hair growth, “swelling, rash, discoloration,” and so on. For example, Leviticus 13:2 commands:

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The Deathly Power of the Holy

The Deathly Power of the Holy

Apr 10, 2026 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Shemini

Finding the right words after loss is hard, but Moses’s comments to Aaron in this week’s parashah are unusually difficult. At the moment that God fills Aaron’s hands with abundance, appointing him as high-priest and his descendants as an eternal priesthood, his two eldest die when they attempt to offer incense with a flame brought from outside the newly dedicated sanctuary—a strange, uncommanded offering. “And fire came forth from the LORD and consumed them . . .”

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Freedom through Torah

Freedom through Torah

Apr 3, 2026 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah

Freedom in biblical and rabbinic Judaism is a highly complex idea. Consider the mishnah above. At first glance one might think the law, the Ten Commandments carved on the two tablets, would be limiting, constraining human freedom. Counterintuitively, the Sages argue that true freedom only comes from an engagement with Torah! How might “laboring in Torah” and living a life according to the demands of the Torah induce freedom?

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