by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on January 31, 2019
The enterprise of ta’amei ha’mitzvot, trying to identify the values that underlie the mitzvot, is an important although potentially dangerous one. The importance lies in the fact that it helps us actualize those values both in the performance of the mitzvot and in other areas of our lives. …
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on February 8, 2018
Sally added tomato sauce to a milkhig soup, and then discovered that the tomato sauce did not have a hekhsher and contained meat! She called the company and found out that the meat content was approximately 5%. She knows that she has to kasher her pot, but she wants to know if she has to throw out the soup or can she give it to her doorman?…
by Rabbi Avi Weiss Posted on May 25, 2016
The Talmud states that the source of prayer is the biblical phrase: “And you shall serve Him with all your heart.” (Deuteronomy 11:13) Service is usually associated with action. One can serve with his or her hands or feet but how does one serve with the heart?…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on February 4, 2016
Mishpatim has many, many laws. So many that one may be misled into believing that the entirety of one’s obligation as a Jew is halakha and mitzvah. However the end of the parasha makes it clear that all of these mitzvot occur in the context of a brit, a covenant: And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord … And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said na’aseh vi’nishma, will we do, and we will listen (Shemot, 24:4, 7).…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on February 11, 2015
The Torah commands us in the laws of Shmita for the first time in this week’s parasha: “And six years you shall sow thy land, and shall gather in the fruits thereof. But the seventh year you shall relinquish it; that the poor of your people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on February 7, 2013
Does the Torah approve of slavery? Consider what Wikipedia says on the topic of Jews and Slavery: “Judaism’s religious texts contain numerous laws governing the ownership and treatment of slaves… Jews continued to own slaves during the 16th through 18th centuries, and ownership practices were still governed by Biblical and Talmudic laws.” And perhaps most troubling: “In the modern era, when the abolitionist movement sought to outlaw slavery, supporters of slavery used the laws to provide religious justification for the practice of slavery.” These statements are completely accurate.…
by Rabbi Dov Linzer Posted on January 28, 2011
There is barely a pause which separates the theophany of the Giving of the Torah at Sinai, in parshat Yitro, to the myriad of laws and the nuts-and-bolts mitzvot of parshat Mishpatim. How are we to understand this sudden transition? Where is the kedusha, the holiness, the human-divine encounter, that follows Sinai, that can be considered a continuation of the Revelation?…
