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Parshat Naso During my days in yeshiva, or perhaps sometime after that, there was a joke that made its rounds within the yeshiva world and beyond. “Do you know who Shimshon’s father was?” “Of course! His was the husband of Eshet Mano’ach (Mano’ach’s wife)!” The joke is not repeated because of its humor but because of the underlying difficulty that it reflects, a difficulty that puzzles the serious students of Tanach. When analyzing the story of Shimshon’s birth in Sefer Shoftim (perek 13), the haftarah that we read this week, it is clear that the central character of the story is Mrs. Manoach, the soon-to-be mother of Shimshon HaGibor. The angel of Hashem appears to her and not her husband. She, not her husband, receives the list of all the strictures that her future son would have to observe. She is given specific laws that she would have to observe, while none are given to Mano’ach. And when Mano’ach asks God to send back the “man of God� ....
When a Curse Is Not a Curse By Rabbi Neil N. Winkler | May 06, 2021 A day school teacher once related his challenge of teaching a Hebrew text to young students who had partial but not yet complete grasp of the language. He related that as he discussed with his students the Torah’s demand of “v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha,” loving one’s fellow, he quoted the well-known comment of Rabbi Akiva that this mitzvah was a “klal gadol baTorah.” One student quickly raised his hand to translate Rabbi Akiva’s statement and said: “This is a great curse in the Torah.” The teacher did his best not to laugh as the student had confused the Hebrew word “klal,” principle, with a similar-sounding word “klala,”curse. ....
Tazria-Metzora The opening words of the haftarah that we read for this parsha provide us with the clear connection to our parshiyot. “V’arba’ah anashim hayu metzora’im petach hasha’ar, And there were four metzora’im (lepers?) at the gate (of the city Shomron)” echoes the topic covered in the Torah reading: laws of contamination and purification of the metzora. The rest of the haftarah, however, seems to have little connection, if any, to the detailed laws of tumah and tahara that fill the parshiyot we read. There is, however, an important lesson we can learn from the salvation brought to Israel by Hashem through these four metzora’im. ....
Shabbat HaChodesh The special maftir reading established by the Tana’im in the Mishnah for this Shabbat HaChodesh was meant to remind the congregation that the time to offer the korban Pesach, the paschal sacrifice, was quickly approaching, and that they must, therefore, prepare in advance for that rite. This reading from Sefer Shemot includes Hashem’s instructions regarding the very first korban Pesach, that which was offered in Egypt itself, with some of those instructions being unique for that first paschal offering alone. As our haftarah was meant to reflect the basic theme of the maftir reading, it too speaks of the unique laws that would apply to the future paschal offerings that would be offered in the Third Temple during the Messianic era. The selection from the 45th and 46th chapters of Sefer Yechezkel is part of the final perakim of the sefer, a section that posed great difficulties to our rabbis over the years, as so many of the laws taught by Yechezkel contradi ....
Parshat Shemini As the Pesach holiday approached it was essential to remind the people that one must maintain a state of “purity” as one who was “impure” could not partake of the korban Pesach. For this reason, both today’s special Maftir reading as well as the accompanying haftarah focus upon the concepts of tahara and tumah, purity and defilement. Understandably, these concepts can be difficult to explain to a modern society as they are no longer applicable since they relate directly to the sanctity of the Beit HaMikdash (and the sacrificial rite) that, to our sorrow, no longer stands. As a result, many mistakenly equate the state of purity with that of cleanliness and the state of defilement with that of squalor. Yet, tumah and tahara are not physical states, they are halachic ones and, therefore, there is no recognizable difference between a person in the state of purity and one who is not. ....