This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 16:18 to 21:9. The portion takes its name from its opening command: “You shall appoint judges (shoftim) and officers within all your gates” (16:18). In this portion of Moses’s final address, he lays out the structural foundations of a just society. As he establishes the leadership framework that will…
This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 11:26 to 16:17. The Torah portion is called Re’eh, which is the imperative to look. It begins, “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse” (11:26). Until now, many of the laws of the covenant have seemed abstract. They were instructions for purging idols from…
This week’s Torah portion is called Eikev, and it covers Deuteronomy 7:12 to 11:25. The name Eikev translates to “because” or “as a consequence of.” Much of its message is about the cause-and-effect relationship between Israel’s obedience and God’s blessings and her disobedience and God’s curses. The portion starts: “If you pay attention to these…
This week’s Torah portion covers Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11. It is called Va’etchanan, which translates to “I pleaded,” because it begins with Moses pleading with God for permission to cross the Jordan River. Deuteronomy 3:22–25 records Moses saying: At that time, I pleaded with the Lord: “Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand.…
We have finally made it to the last book of the Torah. Deuteronomy is Moses’s magnum opus, his farewell speeches to the people he has led out of Egypt and into the wilderness. They are finally at the cusp of entering the promised land, and what Moses and everyone with him understand is that he…
This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 30:2–36:13. The double reading portion of Matot-Masei brings the book of Numbers to its end. Positioned on the plains of Moab, the Israelites stand at the threshold of the Promised Land. This final section functions as a bridge between the wandering generation and the conquest generation. Through legal stipulations,…
This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 25:10–30:1, and it is titled Pinchas. Phinehas is the name used in English Bibles, so that’s the name I will use in this podcast. Phinehas was a prominent biblical priest whose leadership started in the wilderness wanderings and continued into the early period of the Judges. He was the…
This week we are reading Korah, which covers Numbers 16:1–18:32. In the aftermath of the negative report from the ten spies, God pronounced that the current generation must languish in the desert until their deaths. Following that news, it is not surprising that a serious rebellion occurs next. Korah is the antihero in this Torah…
This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 8:1–12:16. The portion begins with God’s instructions on how to set up the Tabernacle’s golden seven-branched lampstand (8:1–4). The priests needed to make sure the six outer branches angled their light toward the central shaft to illuminate the table of showbread opposite. Back in Leviticus, God detailed exactly how…
This week’s Torah portion covers Numbers 4:21–7:89. The title Nasso means carry or elevate. Out of the 54 Torah portions, Nasso has the most verses, making it the longest single portion. The text is made up of seemingly unrelated passages that do not follow a strict chronological timeline. However, they all center around the theme…