The Source of Hope

The Source of Hope

Jul 21, 2012 By Mychal Springer | Commentary | Masei | Mattot | Tishah Be'av

In a dramatic reversal of the ordinary mourning process, ‎which begins in its starkest intensity and lifts over time as the mourners are comforted, ‎these are weeks of increasing mourning that move, inevitably, to the destruction of ‎God’s house and the banishment of the People into exile. The prophetic readings drive ‎home that we have brought this horrible tragedy on ourselves.

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“They Said”/“They Said”

“They Said”/“They Said”

Jul 2, 2013 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

In this week’s parashah, we are told that the children of Reuben and Gad “had a very great multitude of cattle” (verse 1) and the land of Gilead on the eastern side of the Jordan was an excellent “place for cattle.” They, therefore, hoped that Moses would permit them to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan and not cross over to Canaan/Israel proper when the time would arrive to enter the Land.

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Masei

Masei

Jan 1, 1980

4 Hear the word of the Lord, O House of Jacob,
Every clan of the House of Israel!

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Masei

Masei

Jan 1, 1980

1 These were the marches of the Israelites who started out from the land of Egypt, troop by troop, in the charge of Moses and Aaron. 

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Mattot-Masei

Mattot-Masei

Jan 1, 1980

2 Moses spoke to the heads of the Israelite tribes, saying: This is what the Lord has commanded:

3 If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath imposing an obligation on himself, he shall not break his pledge; he must carry out all that has crossed his lips.

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Covenant and Cattle

Covenant and Cattle

Jul 17, 2015 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

As the Children of Israel prepare to enter the Promised Land, their backs to the wilderness after 40 years of wandering, the Torah, too, seems to change direction—and even tone. It trades instructions for the priests and narratives of Israelite disobedience for details of land distribution, inheritance and other laws that will regulate life inside the Land. It is as if the Torah wants to underline the transition about to occur—from wilderness to settlement, disorder to order—by changing the visual image before the reader’s eyes.

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