This is Torah Talk for the week of March 14th, 2021 Lev. 1:1 The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting. But in Exod. 40:34-35 that tent in the middle of the camp is also called the Tabernacle.  And in Exod. 33:7, the Tabernacle has not yet been set […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of March 7th, 2021 Ex. 35:25 And all the skilled women [חכמת-לב] spun with their own hands, and brought what they had spun [מטוה], in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen. “What they had spun” is a single word in Hebrew — a word that sounds an […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 28th, 2021 Ex. 34:28    And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water; and he wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments [עֲשֶׂ֖רֶת הַדְּבָרִֽים]. Wait, what?  Didn’t we […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 21, 2021 Ex. 28:35 [Aaron must wear a robe hemmed with bells …] so that the sound of it is heard [ונשמע קולו] when he comes into the sanctuary before the LORD and when he goes out—that he may not die. Who hears this sound?  Why must it “be […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 14, 2021 Ex. 26:31 You shall make a curtain [פָרֹ֗כֶת] of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and fine twisted linen; it shall have a design of cherubim worked into it. It seems obvious that פרכת must mean curtain, but as Abraham ibn Ezra tells us, this […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of February 7, 2021 Ex. 21:29  If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it [וְלֹ֣א יִשְׁמְרֶ֔נּוּ], and it kills a man or a woman—the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 31st 2021 Ex. 18:5   Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought Moses’ sons and wife to him in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. But how could Moses be there when the Israelites don’t reach the mountain of God until Exod 19:2? This week’s […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 24th 2021 Ex. 14:1   The Lord said to Moses: 2 Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp before Pi‑hahiroth [פִּ֣י הַחִירֹ֔ת], between Migdol [מִגְדֹּ֖ל] and the sea, before Baal-zephon [בַּ֣עַל צְפֹ֔ן]; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. What are these mostly Semitic place names doing in […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 17th 2021 Exod. 10:21       Then the Lord said to Moses, “Hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.” 22 Moses held out his arm toward the sky and thick darkness descended […]

This is Torah Talk for the week of January 10th, 2021 Ex. 6:2-3   God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them [לֹ֥א נוֹדַ֖עְתִּי לָהֶֽם] by My name YHWH.” What does Jewish tradition recognize […]