There\’s a wonderful implicit message in the fact that we always begin the annual Torah reading cycle just after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. \”It is time to begin again,\” the reading cycle tells us. \”And the way to start is by putting the elements of our lives into their proper order.\”
\”Once a person has died, what difference would it make to him if someone else were to live in his house, or harvest his grapes, or even marry his betrothed?\”
As a fitting lead-up to the Fourth, we present in this week\’s parasha the son of Yitzhar, Korach — the tireless biblical fighter against the tyranny of arbitrary and oppressive government, the champion of God-given individual freedom, the Thomas Paine of his day.
Here\’s a riddle: What do leprosy and the State of Israel have in common? Hopefully, nothing leaps to your mind right away. I, however, needed to solve this riddle before I could begin to write this week\’s parasha column: For the week that we celebrate Israel\’s founding also happens to be the week that we read the Torah portion concerning lepers.
Context is everything. Certainly, this must besaid concerning the curious opening of this week\’s Torah portion. Forthe portion opens with a command that has been issued many timesbefore: the command to observe the seventh day as a day of rest.
Deeply ingrained ideas die hard. This week\’s parasha,however, helps to ring the death knell for one such idea. Many of us have been trained to believe that the Torah\’s commandments can be broken down into two basic categories.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.