Who Sees the Truth, and Who Speaks It?

Jun 26, 2026 By Loraine Enlow | Commentary | Balak | Hukkat

Long-time New York subway riders are familiar with the slogan, “See something, say something.” Balaam’s story in this week’s parashah is closer to: “Say something, because you didn’t see something.” After all, “See something, say something” assumes that the hard part is speaking up, but Parashat Balak suggests the hardest part may be noticing at all, especially when Balaam, the professional seer, can’t see the angel in the road that his donkey does. This reversal of who notices (and who misses what’s right in front of them) is what draws me into this passage. As a scholar working primarily on medieval Jewish and Christian biblical commentaries, I’m especially interested in noticing how texts travel, how communities guard them, and how outsiders can sometimes help shed light on a tradition. Biblical interpretation is itself, in a sense, the discipline of noticing ‘angels in the road,’ learning to see what is already present right in front of you in the text.

When a Question Threatens

Jun 19, 2026 By Sarah Wolf | Commentary | Korah

In this week’s parashah, Korah organizes a group of two hundred and fifty well-respected people to protest Moses and Aaron’s leadership. “You have gone too far,” Korah and his group announce. “For all the community is holy, all of them, and God is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourself above God’s congregation?” (Num. 16:3). Moses is appalled, God is furious, and in response, the earth opens up and swallows the protesters, their households, and all their possessions. What are we as readers to make of this episode? Do we attempt to creatively rehabilitate Korah, despite his divine punishment, as an example of those who bravely attempt to speak truth to power? Or do we side with Moses and try to figure out why Korah must have truly deserved what he got?

Grapes of Canaan

Jun 12, 2026 By Achia Anzi | Commentary | Shelah Lekha

The spies’ illustration epitomizes the power of images but also their hermeneutic limitations. Of the complex story that Parashat Shelach Lekha relates concisely, the grapes are a central motif in the visual tradition that illustrates it. For a biblical story to become an image, the artist must focus not only on the sayable but also the seeable. Hence, throughout history, images have often been presented alongside words. For example, the ancient mosaic from the Huqoq Synagogue depicts the two spies, along with the inscription “במוט בשניים”.[2

Independence Day

Jun 5, 2026 By Emmanuel Bloch | Commentary | Beha'alotekha

In Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm argued that freedom is not merely liberation from external constraints (“freedom from”) but also entails the capacity for self-realization and responsible action (“freedom to”). One of the most puzzling passages in Beha-alotekha reflects a similar insight.

Barefoot and Backwards Levites

May 29, 2026 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Naso

Towards the end of Parashat Bemidbar, God commands Aaron and Moses to undertake a census of the Levitical clans (Numbers 4:2). They begin the census with the Kohathites, which is odd for three reasons:

(1) Elsewhere the Levites are listed in birth order—Gershon, Kohath, Merari (Genesis 46:11, Numbers 3:17)—but here Kohath is given priority.

(2) The Kohathites are set apart from the other two clans by the division between Parashat Bemidbar and Parashat Naso, the latter of which begins with the enumeration of the other two clans.

(3) The labor assigned to the Kohathites is described, without elaboration, as “Most Holy” (Numbers 4:4). Rashi explicates this as responsibility for the “the ark, the table, the candelabrum, the altars, the curtain, and the accompanying vessels.”

We Were All Converts at Sinai

May 22, 2026 By David C. Kraemer | Commentary | Shavuot

One of the few age-old rituals that distinguishes the holiday of Shavuot is the public reading of the Book of Ruth. The reason for this association may be no more than that the narrative of Ruth describes its events as taking place “at the beginning of the barley harvest” (1:22), that is to say, at the time of Shavuot. But there is another association, deeper and more fundamental, that ties Ruth to Shavuot in instructive and inspiring ways.

Remember the Land

May 8, 2026 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Behar | Behukkotai

Spring is my favorite season because it draws me outdoors, enticing me to leave the city and enjoy the rivers, fields, and mountains of this glorious earth. Even near the city I often find myself in nature, biking along the Hudson and up the Palisades past waterfalls and nesting eagles. Returning to the land reminds me of the many blessings of our world, filling me with gratitude and awe. It also causes foreboding since the signs of stress on the natural systems that make our lives possible are everywhere evident. While this era of anthropogenic climate change may be new, the concern that human conduct could lead to ruin and exile from the earth is found already in our Torah portion.

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).