#parshah — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #parshah, aggregated by home.social.
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Sharing episode #6 of the HumanisticTorah.org podcast
In this episode, I unpack Parshah Chukat (more specifically, Numbers 19:1-13) and consider how the ancient uses of the red heifer ash water ritual were both in the context of healing from trauma (encountering corpses and returning from war), and how we might want to craft our own rituals today to meet these same needs.
#HumanisticJudaism #Parshah #Chukat #PTSD #Trauma #Judaism #Mazeldon
https://humanistictorah.org/2026/06/18/humanistictorah-episode-6-parshah-chukat/
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Avram is no gung-ho superhero, no conquerer, no Superman, no Rambo. He is stricken with anxiety, with self-doubt, with conflict, with blame. The crushing weight of responsibility sits on his shoulders - After an exhausting night of defending the carcasses of sacrifice, "a great dark dread descended upon him." Rashi says this is representative of the woes and gloom of the Jews in exile. But for Avraham, he is as a nation, a people within himself - with all the internal struggle that that entails. More on that come Parsha Vayera!
After all that, he'd be forgiven for being an overly-serious grinch. But this founding patriarch is no self-aggrandising pompous stoic! His very first action under the name Avraham is to laugh in the face of God and doubt the efficacy of his loins!
I don't have a blog, but I'm starting to see the appeal.
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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The plagues that afflict the Pharoah and his household - the very ones Avram feared would kill him - are on account of Sarai. And that which Avram acquires thanks to her is from the Egyptians: The Jewish nation will be strangers among them for many years to come, and yet it is their riches that helped sustain the creation of Am Yisrael.
And so what is his response to the King of Sodom's offer of possessions for persons? "You shall not say, ‘It is I who made Avram rich.’" Because that would be a falsehood - Avram was made rich by many before him!
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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In turn, they are sustained by the tents he pitches, the altars he builds, the lives he saves, the nation he will birth. It is worth mentioning that the first time Avram is told of the land being assigned (Bereshit 12:7), it is assigned only to his offspring, not directly to him. His name will be made great, but the great name in question is the one he will be given. The goal he is pursuing is one he will never personally witness.
And so it goes on, with Sarai's support - "Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you."
"And because of her, it went well with Avram; he acquired sheep, oxen, donkeys, male and female slaves, jennies, and camels." (it is worth mentioning that according to Midrash, this bounty includes Hagar!)
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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After a very satisfying hour of Torah study...
A Layman's Thoughts on Parsha Lech-Lecha:
I begin with an aside: Gematria and that sort of number-coincidence thing aren't really for me, but it feels worthwhile to at least mention that in the year that Israel turned 75, this is the parsha where Avram is mentioned as being 75 at the start of his journey. Now, on with the show.
Selfless In Every Sense, or; The Model Of The Torahic Hero
Everything Avram achieved was supported by someone else.
Everything Avram achieved was in support of someone else.
He is selfless in both senses of the word - without others, he is nothing, but they too are sustained by his actions."Go forth from your native land, your father's house." His upbringing, and indeed his entire adulthood, shaped him. This is a 75 year old man with 75 years of life lessons and personal influences. The self-made man is a myth!
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#mazeldon #jewdiverse #parsha #parshah #ParshahThoughts #torah #torahstudy #lechlecha
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One of the reasons I love talking about the weekly #parshah on social media is because every week has one, and yet each one only comes once a year, so it is both a timely yet ever-present topic of conversation. It is a great alternative to whatever "timely" topic happens to have the internet angry and at each others' throats at any given moment.
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Parshat Korach is an interesting one, because Korach is quite clearly cast as the villain of the story, yet his core claim against Moshe and Aharon:
"כָל הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים וּבְתוֹכָם ה' וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ עַל קְהַל ה'
All of the nation is holy and have God amongst them, so why do you raise yourselves above the congregation of God?"seems to be a just one. Understanding why Korach is nevertheless wrong is one of the most interesting questions of the #parshah. A great discussion topic for your Shabbos meal!
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The Generation of the Wilderness
The Rabbis argued in Bet Hamidrash
About the generation of the wilderness
Do they have a share in the World to Come?"במדבר הזה יתמו ושם ימותו"
Hashem said in His Holy Torah:
In this wilderness they will perish
And there they shall die!
"They shall perish" refers to our own world
"And there they shall die" refers to the world to come
This is what Rabbi Akiva said;
Said Rabbi Eliezer
They enter the world to come!It is thus stated:
Gather unto me
My pious ones
Who had made a covenant with me over a sacrifice.
The generation who suffered for Hashem
In Egypt and in all travails
Through heat and cold, hunger and thirst
Is not that the greatest sacrifice?Said Rabbah, the grandson of Channa, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan:
שבקיה רבי עקיבא לחסידותיה?!
Oh, Rabbi Akiva!
How could you
Abandon your piety!This is what Hashem said to His prophet, Jeremiah:
Go and call out
In the ears of Jerusalem
And say: "I remember for thee
The piety of your youth
The love of your nuptials
Your following after me
Through a wilderness that cannot be sown."
Now, argued Rabbi Yochanan:
If others enter through their merit –
They, themselves, all the more so!
(TB Sanh. 110b)
#Parsha #Parshah -
CW: Jethro vs. Abraham
According to the Midrash of our Sages, Jethro, who is honoured to have this Sabbath's Parshah named after him, discovered God on his own, through a method of trial and error.
Scripture reports him declaring: "Now I know that the Lord is is greater than all other gods, for the very thing with which they had contrived, turned up over them."
In order to be able to make such a statement in credibility, he had to try first to worship all other gods in the world, and find them lacking.
This brings to mind the way through which our ancestor, Abraham, discovered God. According to the Midrash, he saw the sun rise in the east and reign supreme among the hosts of heaven during the day, so he worshipped the sun. When the sun disappeared at sunset, he realized his error, and seeing the moon rise and reign supreme among the other hosts of the night skies, he worshipped the moon.
When Abraham saw the moon vanish at dawn, he said to himself: "Can such a magnificent palace [meaning the universe] be without a leader?" God then revealed Himself unto him and said: "I am the leader of the palace."
I asked today at the Shabbat table, why God didn't appear in a similar manner to Jethro at the beginning of his spiritual journey, allowing him to blunder through the worship of countless, useless idols.
Answer 1: Jethro should have learned from Abraham's experience. There is no need for every person to go presonally through the experience of searching for the true God, if he has such good precedents.
Answer 2: When Abraham realized his second mistake, he didn't choose a 3rd false option, but stopped his search, in perplexity. This is the key to true revelation. Jethro, on the other hand, kept trying blindly every available option.
I think the difference between Abraham and Jethro goes deeper. Abraham was motivated by the need to serve a Higher power. He sought for the most supreme power in order to worship it. That was why, when he realized that he lacks the means by which to find the true answer, he didn't try any available option. He sought the ultimate truth.
Jethro, on the other hand, sought a deity whom he could gain benefit from. A deity powerful enough to help him in return to his service. That was why he tried any available idol, and only despaired of each when he made sure it was utterly powerless. He didn't care if his idol was worthy of his worship or not--all he wanted was a relationship that worked.
Of course, since he was sincere in his search, he eventually found the true God. He is lauded as Moses' father-in-law, and his partnership with the People of Israel is honorably recorded at length in Scripture, including Balaam's prophecy about his descendants surviving until the end of days.
Shavua Tov, and thanks for reading this! Your thougths and comments are welcome, and of course please boost this if you liked.
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Shavua tov! Here is a thread of some random thoughts on last week's #parshah, Vaeira 🧵 1/
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The only reason I'm not deleting my Birdsite account is because of the inspirational and thought-provoking questions at the #Parshah Chat there.
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CW: The Parshah: The Character of Isaac
In our Amidah Prayers, we address God as "God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob." Why give a special, sperate address to each, rather than joining it together as "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?"
Our Rabbis, of blessed memory, have taught us that this is because each of these three Patriarchs introduced a novel aspect of God's worship, thus making the God of a previous ancestor "their own."
However, when we examine the character of Isaac as depicted in Scripture, we face a paradox. On the one hand, the Torah considered him important enough to give him a Parshah of his own – the Parshah of Toldot, which we have just read this Shabbat.
However, when examining Scripture, it seems that most of this Parshah is rather devoted to his children, Esau and Jacob – first to their early childhood and boyhood, and finally to the story of the Usurpation of the Blessings by Jacob.
Only the middle section discusses Isaac's own work, and even it seems to be entirely filled up by Isaac copying his father's work. The digging of wells, which is merely hinted at during the story of Abraham himself, seems to be Isaac's major accomplishment in life – yet he did not dig new wells, but rather is described as merely reopening those dug by his father.
So, what is the great specialty of Isaac? Why is he considered important enough to be mentioned at all alongside his much more prominent co-Patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob?
To explain this, let me resort to a concept from the teachings of the great Rabbi Shneohr Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Lubavitcher stream of Chassidism.
In this school of thought, the concept of ביטול היש, submission to the extent of self-effacement, takes a prominent place in the various aspects of God-worship. A person is required to serve God "with all his heart, with all his soul and desires, with all his wealth" – total submission (I must stress, though, that this high level is only attainable during the recital of the Shema).Isaac's novelty, the manner introduced by him to serve God, was to devote his entire personality and life to the faithful transmission of the "Way of God" from the previous generation (Abraham) to the next. He knew the prophecy given to Abraham, כי ביצחק ייקרא לך זרע – "ביצחק", ולא כל יצחק, which meant that only one of his children would continue the destiny and holy way of life introduced by Abraham.
[Naturally, he assumed this would be his firstborn son, Esau, until he realized that Jacob's usurping the blessings from Esau and the manner in which it took place was proof that Jacob was chosen by God rather than Esau, due to Esau having sold his birthright and losing his claim to this special heritage.]
He did his best to preserve Abraham's heritage and hand it over to Jacob.
This was his destiny, his major mission in life, for which he was chosen at the עקידה, symbolizing his readiness to sacrifice his very life for the sake of the divine worship performed by his father.Rather than showing lack of character, inability to introduce by himself a new way in which to serve God, the truth is quite the opposite – his strength of character manifested itself in his willingness to devote his entire life to continuing the work of his father, copying him in order to preserve his heritage for the following generation.
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עברית 😉
עורית is more like "blindness" 😂BUT NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT #Avraham was called #Hebrew - the Ivri because he was "over" the line. The whole world was on one side and he was on the other: the only person on earth who recognized his single, everloving Creator. #Torah #Parshah #LechLecha
