"I am torn within, I cry without end. I do not sleep.... Maybe Hashem has finally decided that we are no longer His chosen people?"

Words and worries from the past and present. As always, the parsha comes to speak to our moment.

Sources:

Rabbi Yuval Sherlow, Shu’’t HaHitnatkut p. 139

Lev. 9:23 with Rashi

Jer. chap. 2 with Rashi.

Do we need to earn our place in this world? We find ourselves here, and no one asked us whether we were interested. Yet, once we are here, God makes demands of us.

Our parasha contains the beginning of a meditation on this problem.

Sources: Lev. 6:10, Malachi 1:10, Tosefta Demai 2:8.

Soldiers on the front lines will have an easy time answering key questions. They serve the people of Israel. And the rest of us?

Surely, complex as the process was, it could not have taken six months to make such a small building as the Tabernacle! What was it that took so long that the Mishkan could not be assembled until nearly six months had passed? 

The answers the Sages give is mysterious. It is also precisely the answer we need right now.

Bezalel is key to the construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle), such that it is named after him. What is the Torah teaching us by singling him out?

There is a great secret here: That which is kadosh, holy or sacred- or its opposite- can change our lives.

The High Priest's apron requires golden threads in each strand. The gold teaches us a special lesson that may elevate our behaviors.

The Menorah has a very unusual quality to it: each of its six outer lamps faces in towards the center, so that its light travels inwards.

Negative speech, in order to qualify as Lashon Hara, must be true. So how could the Sages construe our verse, which explicitly warns against falsehoods, to be a warning against true speech, negative though it may be? 

There is an important and timely comment on social ties made at the beginning of our Parasha- one that usually goes unnoticed.