Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland
It all happened in early June, 2003, during finals weeks in the third year of my philosophy studies, at my university in Lublin. I was a very good student, an A-student, but I was not particularly disciplined back then. And precisely because of that I had to spend a whole night on studying for my final, yearly exam in Epistemology – the theory of cognition and knowledge. The oral exam was at 9 am, I got A- and went back to my dorm, to sleep.[…]
Our Torah portions for the last week and for this week contain one of the most important, cornerstone passages we found in our religious tradition. They both contain two of the three paragraphs of our central, biblical everyday prayer and the declaration of our faith, Shema v’Ahavta: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4) is the opening of the first paragraph and “If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God יהוה and serving [God] with all your heart and soul […] (Deut. 11:13) is the opening of the second paragraph.
One of the core principles of rabbinic understanding of the Torah is that no paragraph, no verse, no word and even no letter is redundant — it’s there for a purpose and it always means something. AND when the Torah repeats, it really demands our attention because it’s rare. In Parashat Matot-Masei, we revisit the story of the daughters of Zelophhad—Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah. Their plea is discussed in our last week parasha—Pinchas—when they approached Moshe to request their father’s inheritance. Now, here they are again.[…]
Our parasha starts in the middle of the story that concludes our previous Torah portion and talks about the Israelites getting involved in an idolatrous cult:
While Israel was staying at Shittim, the menfolk profaned themselves by whoring with the Moabite women, who invited the menfolk to the sacrifices for their god. The menfolk partook of them and worshiped that god. Thus Israel attached itself to Baal-peor, and יהוה was incensed with Israel. (Num 25:1-3)[…]
