Enjoy Rabbi Oppenheim’s insights into Passover aspects Weekly Torah Reading: Metzora (Leviticus 14-15) (Being as Passover is a bit more than ten days away, we will discuss different aspects of Passover for the next two weeks) Are You a Freed Slave or A Free Person Anyone who has attended even one Passover Seder knows how […]
Messages from 2014
…the Kohen shall look, and behold! – the affliction has covered his entire flesh, then he shall declare the affliction to be pure… (Leviticus 13:13) The portion of Tazria includes a detailed discussion of an affliction known as Tzara’at, one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Torah. Because Tzara’at afflicts the skin, it is […]
Someone once gave the following summary of Jewish holidays: they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat. This certainly seems to have been the case in the Purim story. A plan (between King Achashverosh and his advisor Haman) was made to annihilate the Jews, the plan was thwarted, and Jews since then have made […]
Purim is less than two weeks away! This coming Thursday is a fast day established about 2500 years ago decreed by Esther, the heroine of the Purim story. Why did she mandate a day of fasting? In order to answer this we need to analyze a few verses from the Megillah. And the King said […]
This week is the portion that completes the book of Exodus and the discussion of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), portable sanctuary used when the Jews wandered in the desert. It’s worth noting that the Torah enumerates all of the precious metals that went into the building of the Mishkan and lists exactly how much gold, silver, […]
G-d spoke to Moshe, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they take an offering for me; from every man whose heart desires [to give], take my offering.’ (ibid. 25:1-2)
And these are the ordinances that you will place before them. (ibid. 21:1) A sizeable quantity of this week’s Torah portion deals with the laws of theft and damage. The question asked by many commentators is, what significance was there in giving specifically these laws immediately after the Ten Commandments and revelation at Sinai (last week’s […]