31/01/2024
THIS WEEK’S PARSHA is climactic for an obvious reason, and a less obvious reason. The giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai is one of the most important events of all of history, greatly altering the direction of mankind.
THIS WEEK’S PARSHA is climactic for an obvious reason, and a less obvious reason. The giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai is one of the most important events of all of history, greatly altering the direction of mankind.
TU BESHEVAT IS upon us once again, b”H, with a very different feel than just one year ago. There had been no October 7 attack yet last year at this time, and no hostages to worry about every day.
THE VERSE SAYS, “It happened at the end of 430 years…that all the legions of God went out of the land of Egypt” (Shemos 12:40), which is interesting because God only spoke to Avraham about 400 years during the Bris Ben HaBesarim.
THE OPENING VERSE sets the stage for the rest of the parsha. Actually, for the rest of the Torah. Actually, for the rest of history. It says, “God spoke to Moshe, and He said to him, ‘I am God’” (Shemos 6:2), which tells us very little in English. But in Hebrew it reads, “Elokim spoke to Moshe, and He said to him, ‘I am Hovayah’.”
THE ARMENIANS TRIED to get the same kind of attention for the genocide they suffered during World War I at the hands of the Turks, as the Jews did after the Holocaust. But most people who saw the signs hanging around the Armenian Quarter in the Old City recalling it probably just moved on, barely wondering what they were talking about, or who the Armenians are.
