The Whole Journey

Jul 10, 2026 By Abigail Uhrman | Commentary | Masei | Mattot

School has ended, and with it comes a familiar flood of feelings. As my own children close out another year, I feel grateful and a little sad, eager for the summer and already nostalgic for the days that just were. My family lives in Israel, where this year those feelings have been especially layered.Transitions press us up against the fullness of what has been, even as they pull us toward what is coming.

This is exactly where B’nei Yisrael finds themselves at the opening of Matot-Masei. With forty years of wandering behind them and the land of Canaan visible across the Jordan, they stand at a great threshold. And it is at precisely this moment that the Torah pauses, looks backward, and does something unexpected:

Pinehas and the Three Weeks

Jul 3, 2026 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Commentary | Pinehas | Tishah Be'av

Most years, Parashat Pinehas is read near the beginning of the Three Weeks. While the timing before or after the Seventeenth of Tammuz shifts, the proximity is worth noticing. This minor fast day commemorates the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls before the destruction of the Second Temple, marks the beginning of the traditional period of mourning that culminates on Tish‘ah Be-Av. Both the parashah and the season that follow are unusually concerned with numbers. Pinehas features a wide range of narratives including the reward granted to Pinehas, the daughters of Zelophehad, and the appointment of Joshua as Moses’ successor. Yet counting appears again and again. A census records the size of the tribes. The inheritance laws depend upon the distribution of land among those tribes. By the end of the parashah, the Torah has turned almost entirely to the calendar, laying out the offerings for Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals.

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.