The Parasha with Rabbi Dweck

We are told to love our fellow as ourselves in these parashot. We explore the meaning of that commandment and focus especially on the love of self and why all love is based on it.

These obscure parashot deal with a phenomenon that was an anomaly even at the time that it manifested in ancient Israel. The strange discolouration and lesion called tsara'at. It is rabbinic tradition that this would occur due to slanderous speech and negative thought as a signal indicating spiritual illness and the need to mend one's ways. In this episode we consider what this entire concept teaches us and how we ourselves might find spiritual healing from its ancient lessons even today.

This episode is a pre-recorded episode due to Passover ending on Thursday this year.

In this episode we explore a thought regarding kosher food and an aspect of its role within Torah.

Perashat Tsav presents the system of sacrifices that were brought in the Holy Temple. There is something about sacrifice that signals to us a message of freedom. This episode unpacks that idea and looks at some essential components that still hold for us today.

The book of Vayikra deals with the service to be performed by the kohanim in the Mishkan and the Bet HaMikdash (Holy Temple in Jerusalem). It includes animal sacrifice. In this episode we discuss why this was important and how we might relate to something we are largely uncomfortable, or at the least, unfamiliar with today.

At the close of the book of Shemot (Exodus), Moses reiterates the Mishkan project to the people but it is introduced first with a command to keep Shabbat while spending six days engaged in what's called melakha. In this episode we explore the nature of melakha and how it sits with us in our lives as Jews in covenant with God. 

Worrying that Moses is late in coming down from Mt Sinai after receiving the Torah from God, the people decide to fashion a stand-in for God in the form of a golden calf. God's first response is to destroy the people and begin again with Moses. But Moses pleads with God to have mercy on the basis that Moses has found favour in God's eyes. Moses asks to know God's ways so that he might find even more favour in the eyes of God. This dialogue teaches two key points about our relationship with God that is illustrated by Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed. In this episode we examine the dialogue between God and Moses and explore the teachings that Maimonides highlights about it. 

Tetsave is most often read with Perashat Zakhor just before Purim. In this episode we look at the theme of memory that pervades all three and consider its implications for our lives as Jews and why Purim seems to be the most important festival of the Jewish year. 

The instructions for the Mishkan project (God's Sanctuary amongst the Israelites) are given this week. A parasha replete with detail on every aspect of the structure. But of the 613 commandments of the Torah, only 3 are counted here. One is that the transport rods used to carry the vessels are not to be removed from the Ark of the Covenant. They must always remain with the ark. This week we explore one interpretation of what this might signify - namely, that Torah must always be ready to move with the people of Israel and live within them in relevance and responsiveness. 

The thunder and lighting and billowing voice of God charging the Ten Commandments has subsided. In the aftermath the people are informed of the Mishpatim - the rules that God presents them with for living. These are not the overarching high moral principles of the Ten Commandments. No, these laws are of the daily intricacies of life: borrowing and lending, property law, damages, interpersonal behaviours and more. It is after these laws, however, that the people accept the covenant at Sinai and sign on the dotted line in blood. What is it that these laws bring to the people that make them respond this way? We explore that question this week.