Evergreen
History And Memory
The ritual of the first fruits provides an example of the tension surrounding forgetting and remembering crises and miracles in our history.
Zionism And First Fruits
The speech that farmers recited when bringing their first fruits to the Temple articulates the Zionist message.
Law, Not Love, Is The Opposite Of Hate
Law is essential to Judaism, establishing an external set of moral guidelines.
To Be Holy For God You Have To Be Wholly For God
The commandment to be wholehearted with God requires us to devote our entire beings sincerely to God.
Decisions And Consequences
Parashat Ki Teitzei contains numerous examples of how we should structure and categorize our decisions and their consequences.
Parashat Ki Teitzei: Summary
Moses enumerates many laws that relate to topics of family relationships, interpersonal ethics, forbidden mixtures, and sexuality.
Child Laborers: The Torah Will Not Let Us Rest Until They Do
Our society is judged on the basis of how we treat our most vulnerable members.
And Your Camp(s) Shall Be Holy
The laws regarding the purity of the Tabernacle and the purity of military camps remind us to ensure the sanctity of all of our dwelling places.
All Is Not Fair In Love And War
By linking the incident of the female prisoner of war to the hated wife and rebellious child, Rashi encourages us to consider the consequences of treating others as objects.
Judaism and the Human Body
The commandment to remove a corpse from the stake on which it is impaled teaches us the importance of respecting the holiness of the body.