Torah Talk

This is Torah Talk for the week of March 6th, 2022 Lev. 1:3    If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd … 9 … the priest shall turn the whole into smoke on the altar as a burnt offering, an offering by fire [אִשֵּׁ֥ה] of pleasing odor to the Lord. Lev. 1:10 […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 27th, 2022 Exodus 39:2 The ephod was made of gold, blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine twisted linen [שֵׁ֥שׁ מָשְׁזָֽר]. This expression appears nowhere else but in the second half of the book of Exodus.  What in the world is twisted linen, and why does מָשְׁזָֽר […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 20th, 2022 Exodus 37:6-9 [Bezalel] made a cover of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. 7 He made two cherubim of gold; he made them of hammered work, at the two ends of the cover: 8 one cherub at […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 13th, 2022 Exodus 34:14  You must not worship any other god, because the Lord, whose name is Impassioned [קַנָּ֣א שְׁמ֔וֹ], is an impassioned God [אֵ֥ל קַנָּ֖א הֽוּא]. Or, as others translate, a jealous God.  But what does it mean to say that God’s name is Jealous? This week’s […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 6th, 2022 Exodus 29:38 Now this is what you shall offer upon the altar … 42 … at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting [אֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵ֖ד] before the Lord. For there I will meet with you [אִוָּעֵ֤ד], and there I will speak with you, 43 and there I […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 30th, 2022 Exodus 25 8 And let them make Me a sanctuary [מִקְדָּ֑שׁ] that I may dwell [וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י] among them. 9 Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle [הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן] and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it. What is a mikdash … what […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 23rd, 2022 Ex. 21:1 These are the rules that you shall set before them: …  Ex. 23:19 … You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.   These are the beginning and ending words of the Covenant Code. [Or are they?  For more on this, listen […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 16th, 2022 Ex. 20:21 [24]  Make for Me an altar of earth … 22 And if you make for Me an altar of stones …   Is this anticlimactic paragraph the end of the Ten Commandments?  Is it the beginning of the Covenant Code?  And why does it matter? This […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 9th, 2022 Ex. 14:1  The Lord said to Moses …  3 Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, “They are astray in the land [נְבֻכִ֥ים הֵ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ]; the wilderness has closed in on them.” What does נבוכים really mean?  Why does Pharaoh not say this, as God expects?  And why […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 2nd, 2022 Exodus 12:42 That was for the Lord a night of vigil [שִׁמֻּרִ֥ים] to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is the Lord’s, one of vigil [שִׁמֻּרִ֛ים] for all the children of Israel throughout the ages. What is/are שִׁמֻּרִים and why is […]