Casting Call: Leaders Wanted

May 12, 2017 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Emor

For the stage, an actor works himself into a role… In this respect, a role in a play is like a position in a game, say, third base: various people can play it, but the great third baseman is a man who has accepted and trained his skills and instincts most perfectly and matches them most intimately with his discoveries of the possibilities and necessities of third base. On the stage there are two beings, and the being of the character assaults the being of the actor; the actor survives only by yielding.

—Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, 1971

Law, Compassion, and Justice

May 12, 2017 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Emor

In the fall of 2012, I taught a course at the Princeton Theological Seminary entitled “An Introduction to Rabbinic Literature.” I saw my mission as twofold. My stated goal was to familiarize my students with the intellectual and spiritual world of the Rabbis through the study of representative texts from each of the genres of rabbinic literature: Mishnah, Tosefta, the Talmuds, and the halakhic and aggadic midrashim.

However, my study of text had a subtext: to disabuse my Christian students of the pernicious stereotypes of rabbinic Judaism that, some would argue, were first fostered by the apostle Paul and that persist to this very day in many Christian circles.

An Illustration of Kiddush Levanah

May 20, 2016 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary | Emor

The middle of this week’s parashah (Lev. 23) details the cycle of the Jewish holidays. Each holiday is listed according to its month and its day. The months of the Hebrew calendar are strictly lunar, from new moon to new moon. Kiddush Levanah, a selection of prayers in honor of the new moon, is traditionally recited at the end of the first or second shabbat of each month.

The Blasphemer’s Twin

May 20, 2016 By Tim Daniel Bernard | Commentary | Emor

This week’s parashah ends with a sin:

וַיִּקֹּב בֶּן-הָאִשָּׁה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית אֶת-הַשֵּׁם וַיְקַלֵּל.

The son of the Israelite woman pronounced the name [of God] and cursed. (Lev. 24:11)

Maybe we don’t need to overthink why a law code seen as given by God would determine that cursing God is problematic, but how severe a crime is this? Evidently, Moses was uncertain: the culprit was detained while Moses checked in with God (Lev. 24:12). Perhaps the negative consequence of this act seems unclear. After all, what harm can possibly come to God through human words?

The Cycles of Nature

May 7, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Emor

A midrash for any attorney or accountant to love, the last line of which already rings with the oy vey iz mir tone which has come down to us via Tevye and Seinfeld as a quintessentially Jewish mode of wry humor.

The Gift of Uncertainty

May 13, 2006 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor

Israel is a land almost wholly dependent on the heavens above. As such, concern for one’s crops is a dominant theme through the biblical and rabbinic periods. Far from being a land irrigated by a river flowing through its length as Egypt, Israel is dependent on the rains above — and the winds below. Accordingly, this week’s Parashat Emor delineates the calendar year and very specifically addresses the period in which we find ourselves — the counting of the Omer from Passover to Shavu’ot.

Sharing Our Blessings

May 8, 2004 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Emor

Traditional rabbinic thought argues that words of Torah are never superfluous. There is a distinct economy in the way that words are employed. And so, when we encounter repetition, Torah is coming to teach us something unique. The challenge for us, as readers, is to understand the import of repetition. Parashat Emor offers us one such opportunity. Although the law of pe’ah, leaving one corner of the field to the poor, is legislated a few chapters earlier in Parashat K’doshim (Leviticus 19:9), it is placed this week in a list of festivals. What is the significance of restating such law in the midst of our parashah?

Rachel’s Tears

May 10, 2003 By Melissa Crespy | Commentary | Emor | Yom Hazikaron-Yom Ha'atzma'ut

It is hard not to be moved by the verses in our parashah which say that when a sheep or goat is born, it shall stay seven days with its mother, and that “no animal from the herd or from the flock shall be slaughtered on the same day as its young.” (Leviticus 22:28) Though few of us are close to sheep or goats, we are sensitized to the feelings of animals from our loving relationships with our pets, and we feel the sensitivity the Torah holds for the sheep and goats, even though they are destined to become food for humans or sacrifices for God.