The fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar, literally means “desert.” It covers the main events of the forty-year period of wandering through Sinai and the Arava into what is Jordan today, before reaching the East Bank of the River Jordan. In mystical terms words have significance on many different levels. The most obvious example is the Hebrew root SFR which…
Author: Jeremy Rosen
Numbers
It seems strange that a crucial book of the Torah should be called BaMidbar, in the desert. The simple answer is that the books of the Torah were not originally given names and when somewhere some two thousand years ago, the rabbis decided to do so, they simply used the first Hebrew noun of the book as an easy handle.…
Perseverance
This book covers the forty years that the Children of Israel spent in the wilderness until the old generation died out and a new one was ready to march into the land. It starts with all the pomp of organizing the Israelites into units and subdivisions, administered by its hierarchies, given their positions and marching orders in preparation for the…
Charlie Gard and Life
You may have read about the battle in London over the final days of life for a baby called Charlie Gard. He was born with a form of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome that causes increasing muscle weakness and brain damage. There is no known cure. The doctors in Great Ormond Street Hospital in London diagnosed this fatal condition. They put…
Warnings, rebukes
The last Parsha of the Book of Vayikra is one of two examples of a brief promise of good things if we obey God followed by a long dire warning of what will happen if we disobey. To us it seems strange that the Torah goes into such a lengthy litany of horrible things that will befall us. Did God…
Herem
Towards the end of this week’s double portion of the Torah there is a reference to the word Herem. Most people think of Herem as the Jewish equivalent of excommunication, banning someone from the community. The most famous and highly controversial example was Spinoza (1632-1677), the brilliant and ethical Dutch philosopher descended from Spanish Jews. He rejected Judaism and challenged…