Weekly Torah Commentaries

As we dwell in our sukkahs, let's remember how the Lord dwells with us in Yeshua. And as we see Sukkot as the final fulfillment holiday in our annual cycle, let's remember how Sukkot points us to our final and complete redemption found in Yeshua our Messiah.

The story of Jonah is left without a conclusion, but with an open question: God says, “Shouldn't I be concerned about the 120,000 human souls in Nineveh?” The question invites Jonah to share in God's concern and compassion, and it expands into a question for us.

The Akedah, the narrative of the binding of Isaac found in Genesis 22, forms one of the major themes of the traditional Rosh Hashanah liturgy. The well-known, if unsettling, account follows Abraham as he attempts to obey a divine call to sacrifice his son on the altar.

Our hope is not based on Israel's ability to hold onto God, but on God's faithfulness to hold onto Israel. And because he remains faithful, he continues to call us to teshuvah. He calls us to choose life, love Adonai, listen to his voice, and cling to him.

There's an ancient story that the Romans required bridge builders to stand underneath their completed bridges when the supporting scaffolding was removed. The reason is obvious—it was an incentive for them to show that they had done the job correctly, that they had “skin in the game.” Otherwise there would be some consequences for them. It is clear that God has a lot of skin in the game in the story of our people.

This week's portion opens with a legal code regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that can seem remote from life today, until we set it against the catalogue of wartime horrors compiled over the past century. Read against that record, the distance collapses.

As we remember our need for restoration during this season of reflection and repentance, we are thankful for the One who stands before God on our behalf. But can we also look beyond our own need for restoration and share in the burden that Messiah Yeshua carries for the restoration of all Israel?

Scripture reminds us that before we ever inherit anything from God, God chose us as his inheritance. He delights in his people. We are our beloved's inheritance, and he is ours. The One who gives rest. The One who dwells among his people.

Our parasha includes a famous passage: “So you will eat and be full, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land He has given you” (Deuteronomy 8:10). This verse displays a specific order: we are commanded to eat first, then be satisfied, and then bless the Lord for all the good land, Eretz Yisrael, He has bestowed upon us.

The Torah restrains vengeance and establishes justice. The Prophets call Israel to embody righteousness with compassion. Messiah carries that same calling into the hidden places of the heart, where anger, pride, bitterness, and hatred first take root. God's purpose has always been to form a people who bear his likeness.

As we see throughout our texts, zeal can take on a wide variety of forms. It does not mean one must go and pick up a spear . . . consult your local rabbi before doing this! Every moment of every day is a great moment to ask how we can take a stand for Hashem through our actions.

All of us would benefit from understanding the way Moses and the people employed negotiations during their journey across the land. Two different sections of land, two different communities, two different responses from the occupants of the land, and two very different outcomes.

We measure our days in hours and moments, rushing from one thing to the next, yet the Creator moves with eternal purpose—never late, never early, always perfect. In the noise of life, it is easy to forget that his timing is not only different from ours … it is holy.

It is good to be concerned with our safety and the safety of those we love. But we cannot allow our concerns to impede our response to something God is trying to do or to show us. Indeed, sometimes God's directives, when we view them without faith, might seem dangerous. This is why belief is so paramount.

As the old saying goes, “There's no such thing as a free lunch.” Or free fish. Or free bread. There are costs attached. There are debts owed. The quality of the freebies doesn't matter when only one path leads us to eternal sustenance.

The Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6 is among the oldest liturgical texts in biblical history. Archaeologists have recovered it inscribed on silver amulets dating to the seventh century BCE, predating even the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its age, however, is not its most striking feature.

“Shema” means to hear or listen, but ancient Hebrew is a language of action. Hearing and listening are passive activities. When we find the word “shema” in the Bible, it can mean “to hear,” but oftentimes it is translated as “listen” when there is an active component of obedience or some form of action attached to the meaning.

God is not just a God of order; he desires for us to draw near to him. As we begin the Book of Numbers, we remember how he cared for our ancestors by numbering them and giving them freedom from bondage.  Further, he invites them into intimacy, into a covenant that is alive and well today. Our challenge is: Will we accept it?

What is surrender? Simply put, it is giving up our idea of how our lives should be run and accepting God's idea for us. As he lays out his direction for our lives, we display that Abraham-like trust.  

The offering and Priest — the Shepherd and the Lamb Glory to the One who died and rose again And is the great I Am The Shepherd and the Lamb Hallelujah!

Holiness means being set apart, but not just from something. It means being set apart to Someone. That's the difference. If holiness is only separation, you end up with legalism. If it's only connection, you end up with compromise. Torah holds both together.

When grace is received, it often feels like a lifting, a release from heaviness long carried. Something shifts within, as though the gravity of the soul has changed.‍ The rabbinic tradition gives language to this transformation. “Great is repentance, for it can transform even deliberate sins into merits” (Yoma 86b). What once weighed us down can, through grace, become the very ground of renewal.‍

Our sages recognized the importance of distinction and taught us to bless the “One who makes creatures different,” affirming that diversity itself is part of the Divine wisdom. Each person, each animal, each role, reflects a different facet of God's glory. When these distinctions are honored within a framework of love and covenant, they do not divide us—they deepen our capacity to see one another and to see God more fully.

It may be normal to be anxious as we're bombarded with reports of antisemitic violence. But the Survivors' Haggadah (published in 1946 for Jews still in European DP camps observing their first Passover after World War II) declares, “The seder is a protest against despair.”

Our awareness of the distance between humanity and a holy God recalls the famous image from Michelangelo's painting of the Creation. God and Adam are reaching out to each other with fingers extended but not touching. “In Israel, however, unlike the Sistine Chapel,” notes one commentator, “they do make contact!”  

Our parasha portrays a rarely seen and crucial harmony between divine desire and human motivation. It is a harmony between the exterior — the expressed will of God, and the interior — the heart and will of human beings. This harmony portrayed in Torah reaches its crescendo in the blessings of the New Covenant, and its final cadence in the world to come.

As a congregational leader, I am often asked questions pertaining to belief. People want to know the biblically correct perspective on eschatology, salvation, and the nature of God. I am always happy to answer these questions to the best of my ability, but it's far less frequently that I'm asked more practical questions: How should I live? What should I do? What sort of person should I strive to be?

Parashat Tetzaveh and Shabbat Zachor, our readings just before Purim, together offer a simple but urgent charge. Remember who you are. Remember whom you serve. Remember why you were redeemed. And do not forget.

In Moses' day the heartfelt donations were used to construct a special place for Adonai to dwell with his people as they continued on their journey. Today, instead of giving precious materials to construct a physical dwelling we are learning to live less for our own worldly successes and physical desires and more to become one with the Spirit of God.

When we first moved to Ann Arbor, more than forty years ago, there was a Chinese restaurant nearby with a giant lobster in a tank in its foyer. The creature was nearly three feet long and must have weighed close to twenty pounds. No one knew for sure how old it was—perhaps seventy-five years, give or take. So why am I talking about lobsters and what does it have to do with our parasha?

Each time we stand before the open ark, we stand again at Sinai. We repeat Israel's ancient pledge, affirming that all God has spoken, we will do. Parashat Yitro reminds us that this pledge demands more than belief. It demands shared leadership, covenantal responsibility, and lives shaped by service.

In the modern world, no text has spoken more profoundly to people about their potential to achieve freedom. The message to Israel for all time is clear. The God who has raised you up in fulfillment of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not forget his promises to you.

In Parashat Bo, a portion filled with plagues, Pharaoh, and Passover instructions, we are reminded that woven into the fabric of our history, God has provided tangible, sensory traditions that remind us of who he is and who he called us to be.

Just as Israel experienced an initial redemption in Egypt even while still enslaved, so we, too, are invited to live within the redemption God has already enacted in Messiah. Our life is shaped not only by anticipation, but by participation: learning to recognize what God has done, what he is doing now, and how we are to live as his redeemed people today. Our ransomed life is now.

It is only after Moses turns aside that God speaks. Moses first hears God through the miracle of the bush that burns without being consumed. Only then does he truly listen—by pausing, turning, and giving his full attention to what is unfolding before him.

The idea of a long process toward a distant goal feels daunting unless we're rewarded along the way. What happened to perseverance—to enduring hardship so that, when we look back, we can see how much stronger we've become because of it?

Parashat Miketz — meaning “at the end” — opens with the words “At the end of two full years…” referring to the final stretch of Joseph's imprisonment following the false accusations from Potiphar's wife. But behind those two years lies a far longer story of waiting, injustice, disappointment, and perseverance.

Chanukah is usually told as the story of a jar of oil. Yet the oil miracle, beautiful as it is, appears only in the Talmud—recorded centuries after the Maccabean revolt. If we look more closely at the earliest sources, something surprising emerges. Chanukah was once focused not on the menorah, but on the altar.

Each of us will struggle with God, but hang on in your wrestling—don't let go until you realize the blessing! Be reconciled. If you wronged someone, seek forgiveness; if you were wronged, give forgiveness freely without prompting.

Rosebud was the name of Citizen Kane's childhood sled, an emblem of simpler days, a symbol of a time when he knew joy, safety, and belonging. What makes that symbol powerful is not its sentimental value. It is what it represents: the longing for a spiritual home.

The relationship between Jacob and Esau is a foundational relationship in the Scriptures: Israel and the Nations in shalom, under one Shepherd, sharing in each other's destinies through humility and turning toward the other.

Sarah is a woman well worth remembering, one who continues to be an example to each generation. Sarah's story is a picture of what it takes to journey through life as an imperfect human. All the while, we seek God; He knows us, He knows our value to His plan.

If Abraham and Sarah could see our world today, I think they might weep. We've traded tents for walls and neighbors for networks. We are more “connected” than any generation before, yet loneliness has become the epidemic of our age.

In the one place where life is lived daily under threat, where rockets, wars, and uncertainty are part of the national daily experience, Israel stands unique among western nations in maintaining a sustainable, even vibrant, birth rate.

Quietly tucked into one of the last verses of Parashat Noach is the template for God's plan of calling and leadership. It is also a reflection of the enduring concept in Judaism known as l'dor v'dor – from generation to generation.

Another way to translate the opening words of Genesis could be: “With beginnings, God created,” emphasizing that everything in life has a beginning. Although there are times when everything seems to just fall into place, the reality is that most beginnings are not easy.

Every year we have a divinely orchestrated time in which we not only recognize His Presence as our ultimate covering, but we also have the opportunity to sew that beautiful reality into the tapestry of our future generations.

Kol Nidre, the opening prayer of Yom Kippur services, can be seen as the prayer that frees us—not only from words spoken aloud, but also from hidden vows of bitterness, fear, and despair. It becomes our collective cry to Hashem: release us from these bonds.

As we move through this sacred time of reflection and renewal from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, many of us carry questions that linger beneath the surface. As we bring our heartfelt petitions before the throne, perhaps the most tender of questions is this: Where is God in the midst of our suffering?

Messiah Yeshua bears the awesome glory of the heavenly throne room into the ordinary spaces of our lives, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.

We are in the month of Elul, the season of return. We draw near to God and seek forgiveness. This week, we are stirred to arise; we are moving from a time of sorrow to a time of glory and great joy. Arise and shine; it's time to wake up.