Aspaqlaria

Category: 4- Bamidbar

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4- Bamidbar / Theodicy

Why Parashas Balaq?

A lesson that can be learned from Parashas Balaq…. Why is the story of Balaq trying to hire Bil’am in the Chumash altogether? The Moavim don’t learn a lesson, they remain our enemies. Bil’am certainly didn’t change. And the Jews? We didn’t know anything about it at the time. And if it weren’t in the Torah, we still wouldn’t. My...

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4- Bamidbar / Torah as Growth

Mas’ei — the Journey as a Name of G-d

Parashas Mas’ei opens with a description of Benei Yisra’el’s trip through the desert, and lists the forty-two stops made along the way. An oft-quoted Zohar identifies the stops in the desert with each of the letters in Hashem’s forty-two letter name. What’s the particular significance of the journeys and stops in Sinai that give them such cosmic significance? Taking a...

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4- Bamidbar

Naso: Society and the Priesthood

A thought struck me during the Torah reading this past Shabbos about a unifying theme throughout parashas Naso. Here are the topics in the parashah: The task assignments and census of the three clans of sheivet Levi. This section defines the sacred camp. The rest of the parashah discusses the porousness of the divider between the sacred camp and general...

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4- Bamidbar

And You Shall Live by Them

This morning’s Torah reading, Acharei Mos, included the following pasuq (18:5): שְׁמַרְתֶּם אֶת-חֻקֹּתַי וְאֶת-מִשְׁפָּטַי, אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם הָאָדָם וָחַי בָּהֶם; אֲנִי ה’. Guard My statutes and My laws which a person shall do them and live by them; I am G-d. Chazal expound “‘Vechai bahem’: velo shayamus bahem — ‘and live by them’: and not that you shall die by...

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4- Bamidbar / Dei`os

Qorach’s Heart

The title verse of this week’s parashah reads “ויקח קרח” (Bamidbar 16:39). The simple translation would be “And Qorach took”. However, the Midrash Rabbah takes it slightly differently, using an equally valid if less obvious translation. “‘And he took Qorach’ — meaning, his heart took him.” The Ramban notes that the word “vayiqach” consistently refers to a non-physical move. This...

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4- Bamidbar

Parashas Matos and Kol Nidre

My neighbor, R’ Eli Radinsky, recently drew the following similarity to my attention. There is an obligation to begin add time to Yom Kippur, an obligation true of Shabbos and every holiday, but happens to be derived from a verse about Yom Kippur. (“You shall afflict yourselves on the ninth of the month in the evening, from evening to evening,...

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4- Bamidbar / Forks / Holidays

Kehunah and Unity

Back on Chanukah I wrote: Chomos migdalei, the walls of my citadel [mentioned in the poem “Ma’oz Tzur“], were not the mighty walls around the Temple Mount or the walls of a fortress. They were a see-through mechitzah, the realization that the Jew, as one of the Mamleches Kohanim, has a higher calling. One possible reaction to assimilation is to...

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4- Bamidbar / Gender

Gender Differences: Oaths

The Torah uses two different words for husband: ish, in particular when used with the feminine possessive “ishahh” (her man); and ba’al. Interestingly, in the beginning of parashas Matos, the section on annulling vows, only ishahh is used (v. 8, 9, 11, 12, twice in 13, twice in 14, 15; observation made to Avodah by Akiva Miller), ba’al is not...

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4- Bamidbar / Clothing

Tzitzis: Advance and Retreat, part II

I discussed the role of tzitzis and the various roles we have for clothing in a number of earlier posts in this topic. The following is a different take on the idea from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK. He is closest in topic to my “Tzitzis: Advance and Retreat“. I wrote about two aspects to the mitzvah...

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4- Bamidbar / Clothing / Shema

Tzitzis, Advance and Retreat

There are two descriptions of the mitzvah of tzitzis. First, from parashas Shelach (and Qeri’as Shema): … [T]hey should make for themselves tzitzis on the corners of their garments (bigdeihem) throughout their generations, and that they put on the tzitzis of each corner a thread of blue wool (techeiles). And it shall for you tzitzis, and you will see it...

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4- Bamidbar / Forks

Different Parts of the Same Body

We can draw a theme from parashas Bamidbar through the beginning of Beha’alosekha.In Beha’alosekha, Moshe and Aharon count the Jewish People “according to their families, by their father’s household” (1:2), divided by sheivet. Sheivet is defined patrilineally. Membership in the Jewish People as a whole is matrilineal, though. Why? We also find this asymetry in a law mentioned later in...

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4- Bamidbar / Taharah

Tum’ah and Taharah, part II

Rav Y Henken replied to my previous entry on this subject (repeated here for the benefit of Google). He wrote: See in my “New Interpretations on rhe Parsha” (Ktav) and also Shu”t Bnei Banim vol. 4 maamar 22. Q. Why is a woman in childbirth considered to be ritually impure? A. That is a difficult question. Vayikra is full of...

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4- Bamidbar / Taharah

Tum’ah and Taharah

[From this week’s Shabat B’Shabbato by Machon Zomet. I found this devar Torah to be particularly Aspaqlaria-esque. See also my take on tum’ah from Mesukim MiDevash on Chukas.]POINT OF VIEW Ritual Impurity and Purity Prof. Shalom Rozenberg I will take this opportunity to discuss the significance of ritual purity and impurity in Jewish thought. To do this, I will relate...

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4- Bamidbar / Taharah

Parashas Chuqas

When looking at the mitzvah of tzitzis for parashas Shelach (Toras Aish: Vol. 1, No. 4, Mesukim MiDevash) we discussed at the color of tekheiles. This week’s parashah opens at the opposite end of the spectrum, the red heifer. As a preface, here is a very brief review of the relevant concepts. We noticed that man feels torn between two...

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4- Bamidbar

The Kohen and the Menorah

Hashem chose Aharon and his descendants to serve Him as Kohanim. It seems strange. If anyone should be chosen to be the first Kohen wouldn’t it be Moshe? Wasn’t he the Eved Hashem — the greatest servant of the Almighty? The Gemara attributes to Moshe the attitude of “let the law uproot mountains.” He lived to the ideal, teaching by...

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4- Bamidbar / Clothing

Shelach 5754

(Another version of this thought was included in Mesukim MiDevash for parashas Shelach, in the “Bemachashavah Techilah” column, pp 1-2. -micha)   Inherent Tension Judaism sees man as a synthesis of two opposite concepts. On the one hand, man is a physical animal, on the other, he carries “the spark of the Divine.” As the Torah describes it: Then G-d...