by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 12, 2022 | Emor, Justice, Repentance
Leviticus seems to tell the Children of Israel that when someone hurts his fellow he should be punished in kind. Understood literally, the verses seem to say that we must implement reciprocal justice; paying another back measure for measure for the harm he inflicts on...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 4, 2022 | Community, God, Justice, Kedoshim, Kindness and Compassion
Among the many mitzvot (commandments) listed in the Torah portion of Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:1-20:27) is an incongruous commandment telling the Jews to pay wages on time: The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning. Leviticus 19:13 Though paying...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 4, 2022 | Community, Faith, Holiness, Justice, Leadership, Pekudei, Temple
The Tabernacle and all its components required large amounts of costly materials so, after its construction, Moses gave an accounting of materials that had been used (Exodus 38:21). This required that in addition to being a prophet, politician, judge, and social...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 4, 2022 | Bo, Justice
In 2003, about 3,300 years after the Hebrews left Egypt, Nabil Hilmy, dean of the faculty of law at Egypt’s Zagazig University, announced that he was suing the Jews for the gold and silver they took when they left Egypt. Calling the alleged theft the “greatest fraud...
by Mordi Levi | f 31, 2021 | Hebrew Language, Isaiah, Israel, Justice, Redemption, Repentance
Chapter five of Isaiah presents one of the most famous parables in the Bible, known as the song of the vineyard. In it, Isaiah gathers the people together to pass judgment on a disobedient vineyard. Despite the owner’s efforts to care for the vineyard that he loves (a...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 28, 2016 | Covenant, Justice, Revelation and Prophecy, Vayigash
The first Israeli to win a Nobel Prize offered a sweeping account of the wanderings of the Jewish people throughout exile in his banquet speech. Dressed in tails and a black tie with a giant black kippah on his head in 1966 in Stockholm, writer Shai Agnon began his...
