by Rabbi Eliezer Lawrence
Posted on February 16, 2023
There is a universal wisdom that children are supposed to respect their parents, so it is not surprising that we are introduced to the mitzvah of kibbud av va’eim—honoring one’s parents—in the “10 commandments” of last week’s parsha. This foundational mitzvah is complex, with sugiyot in the gemara, simanim in the Shulkhan Arukh and countless seforim devoted to ascertaining what that “respect” should look like.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on November 11, 2021
Yaakov is the first person in the Torah who articulates the idea of a house of God. “This is nothing other,” he says upon waking up, “than the house of God and this is the gate to heaven” (Gen. 28:17). The Rabbis point out the power of that concept of a house of God and its association with Yaakov.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on October 28, 2021
That question is, of course, anachronistic. A close reading of this week’s parsha and later parashot, however, reveals that Rivka’s marriage to Yitzchak—as well as Rachel and Leah’s marriages to Yaakov, and most likely Sarah’s marriage to Avraham—brought into the Jewish family a woman’s voice and role that might otherwise have been absent.…
by Nava
Posted on September 24, 2021
From the start of Elul through Shemini Atzeret, we recite Psalm 27. There we read, “One thing I ask of the Lord, only that I seek: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to frequent God’s Temple” (Psalm 27:4).…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on June 17, 2021
The transition into full adulthood, with its incumbent privileges and responsibilities, is often a long process. In recent years there has been increasing recognition of a stage of life between adolescence and adulthood; this stage has been called the “odyssey years.”…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on October 29, 2010
Avraham, at the end of his life, is worried that Yitzchak find a proper wife, and sends his servant back to his homeland to find a wife from his country and his relatives. Thus, Parshat Chayei Sarah is, in a way, a reverse lekh lekha. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer
Posted on May 1, 1998
The parsha of Emor centers on the sanctity of the Kohanim: their obligation not to become impure, restrictions on whom they can marry, and the conditions under which they can serve in the Temple and eat its sacrifices. The end of the parsha enumerates all the festivals of the year and the special sacrifices brought on each.…