The Significance of Purity and Impurity in The Relationship Between Humankind and God Rivky Yisraeli is the Educational Director of the Neveh Channah High School for Girls, in Memory of Anna Ehrman The Book of Vayikra – or Torat Kohanim as it is also known – deals primarily with the Mishkan/Mikdash; the sacred service performed …
Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33) By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel – “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought unto the priest” (Leviticus 14:2) In the opening of this week’s portion of Metzora, the Torah introduces us to the law commanding a person …
Parshat Tazria: Leprosy – Between Isolation and Community Life by Rabbi Ronen Ben David, Headmaster of OTS’s Neveh Channah, in memory of Anna Ehrman I remember the first time I studied the Book of Leviticus, and what I felt upon reaching the chapters about leprosy. The general atmosphere was one of disgust and repudiation. Though …
Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33) By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel – The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying,“When you come into the Land of Canaan which I give to you as an inheritance and I shall give you the plague of leprosy in the houses of the land of your inheritance.” …
Parshat Tazria-Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:33) Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Efrat, Israel – “Then he shall sprinkle [the mixture] seven times upon the person being purified from the tzara’at; he shall purify him and set the live bird free upon the open field” (Leviticus 14:7). One of the strangest and most primitive-sounding rituals of the Bible surrounds the …
Tazria-Metzora 5778 (Leviticus 12:1-15:33) Rabbi David Stav This Shabbat, we will read the double-parsha of Tazri’a–Metzora in our synagogues. Dozens of verses outline the symptoms of various skin diseases that appear on people’s heads, in their beards, in their clothes and in their homes. Suffice it to say that nowhere else in the Torah can we …