Tag Archives: Kedoshim

Shabbat Akharei Mot/Kedoshim: Plumbline Ethics

Some of us are lucky enough to call ourselves fortunate these days, if despite the pandemic we are feeling well and our greatest challenge is cabin fever. We know that so many are suffering, both within our community and beyond.  How to respond? What can we do in these days to share whatever we areContinue reading “Shabbat Akharei Mot/Kedoshim: Plumbline Ethics”

Shabbat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: Choices Don’t Free You, They Distract You

On any given day, we are confronted with choices, and have to make a decision regarding how best to choose; that is, how best to live. In some ways we imagine that our lives are so much better than our ancestors, who, we presume, made their choices from a much narrower range of options, andContinue reading “Shabbat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: Choices Don’t Free You, They Distract You”

Shabbat Kedoshim: Neither Inaccessible Nor Absurd

Our parashat hashavua (“section of the week”, i.e. the part of the Torah assigned by ancient Jewish tradition for this week in the Jewish calendar) begins with the most inaccessible and ludicrous of demands:  “Speak to the People Israel and say to them, ‘be holy [kadosh], as I ‘ה your G*d am holy [kadosh]’.” (Lev. 19.2) But when weContinue reading “Shabbat Kedoshim: Neither Inaccessible Nor Absurd”

Shabbat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: The Goal of Torah Study

This week’s parashah is once again a double: Akharei Mot, “after death” and Kedoshim, “set apart”, which is what “holy” means in Jewish religious culture.  Because every couple of years these two parashot occur as a double (meaning that we read at least a third of them both), it was only natural that our inquisitive andContinue reading “Shabbat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: The Goal of Torah Study”

Parashat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: Reason to Live

This week we read a doubled parasha, just as we did last week. The words that provide the title of the first parashah are Akharei Mot – “after the death”. The words refer to the deaths of Nadav and Abihu, Aaron’s two sons who died suddenly, without warning, tragically, only a few verses of Torah ago. The second parashah is named Kedoshim – “holy ones”, takenContinue reading “Parashat Akharei Mot-Kedoshim: Reason to Live”