Torah Portion

Emor

אמור

Leviticus 21:1-24:23
Ezekiel 44:15-31

An Eye for an Eye or for Shekels: Canaan’s Cuneiform Laws

An Eye for an Eye or for Shekels: Canaan’s Cuneiform Laws

The cuneiform Laws of Hazor, from the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., suggest that biblical laws had roots in Canaanite law. This challenges, for example, the idea that the Bible’s lex talionis was borrowed from Hammurabi’s laws. While some ancient Near Eastern laws draw distinctions between social classes, Leviticus later makes clear that all human lives are equally valuable.

Prof.
Wayne Horowitz
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Blasphemy: Piercing God’s Name

Blasphemy: Piercing God’s Name

Cursing YHWH is more than simply expressing contempt and irreverence. In the biblical world view, it is attempted deicide, and thus is punishable by death.

Prof.
Theodore J. Lewis
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Burning Desire Punished by Fire

Burning Desire Punished by Fire

Why the promiscuous daughter of a priest and Tamar, the widowed daughter-in-law of Judah, are sentenced to die by fire. The “poetic justice” of immolation.

Prof.
Esther Brownsmith
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Lechem Hapanim: Bread in the Presence of YHWH

Lechem Hapanim: Bread in the Presence of YHWH

Each week, twelve fresh loaves of bread were placed before YHWH in the Tabernacle and Temple. What do we know about the practice and its significance?

Prof.
Jennie Ebeling
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The Three Shavuot Festivals of Qumran: Wheat, Wine, and Oil

The Three Shavuot Festivals of Qumran: Wheat, Wine, and Oil

Throughout the Bible, we find that the land of Israel is blessed with grain, wine, and oil (דגן, תירוש, ויצהר). In the Torah, however, the festival of Bikkurim, “First Produce,” only celebrates the wheat harvest. In the Temple Scroll, the Essenes rewrote the biblical festival calendar to include two further bikkurim festivals to celebrate wine and oil.

Prof.
Marvin A. Sweeney
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A Tribute to the Blasphemer’s Mother: Shelomit, Daughter of Divri

A Tribute to the Blasphemer’s Mother: Shelomit, Daughter of Divri

A struggling ex-slave and single mother labors against all odds to raise her son and shield him from the prejudices of the surrounding community.

Prof. Rabbi
Wendy Zierler
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Sukkot in Ezra-Nehemiah and the Date of the Torah

Sukkot in Ezra-Nehemiah and the Date of the Torah

According to Ezra (3:4) and Nehemiah (8:14-15) the returnees celebrated the holiday of Sukkot according to the law as it “was written,” but differences between their celebrations and the prescriptions in the Torah suggest that the laws they had written were slightly different than ours. Was the Torah finalized by the time Ezra-Nehemiah was written?

Dr.
Lisbeth S. Fried
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How and Why Sukkot Was Linked to the Exodus

How and Why Sukkot Was Linked to the Exodus

The scribes who wrote the addendum to the laws of Sukkot (Leviticus 23:42-43) used inner-biblical exegesis to explain the requirement to dwell in booths as a commemoration for the miraculous booths (not clouds) that God created for the Israelites at their first stop on the way to freedom.

Prof. Rabbi
David Frankel
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Violating the Holiness of God’s Camp: The Story of the Blasphemer

Violating the Holiness of God’s Camp: The Story of the Blasphemer

In a fight with an Israelite, the son of an Egyptian man curses YHWH and is stoned to death. This story, one of only two in Leviticus, highlights a larger concern regarding the need to maintain the holiness of the camp on one hand and the rights of gerim (strangers) to live among the Israelites as equals on the other.

Dr.
Adriane Leveen
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The Origins of Sukkot

The Origins of Sukkot

The connection between the Israelite festival of Sukkot in the temple and the Ugaritic new year festival and its dwellings of branches for the gods.  

Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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The Wood Offering Celebration – “As Written in the Torah”

The Wood Offering Celebration – “As Written in the Torah”

Bringing wood for the altar was an important celebration in Second Temple times. To ground this practice in the Torah, Nehemiah (10:35) describes it as a Torah law, while the Temple Scroll (11Q19) and the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q365) include it in their biblical festival calendar.

Dr.
Alex P. Jassen
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Does the Torah Prohibit Castrating Animals?

Does the Torah Prohibit Castrating Animals?

Jewish law prohibits the gelding of animals based on its interpretation of Leviticus 22:24. Is this what the Torah means? Why might the Torah have prohibited this, and how could the prohibition function in an agrarian society dependent on draft animals?

Dr.
Elaine Goodfriend
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Integrating the Exodus Story into the Festivals

Integrating the Exodus Story into the Festivals

The exodus story, which is presented as the basis for many of the Torah’s rituals, is a secondary insertion in many of these contexts.

Prof. Rabbi
David Frankel
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When Does Counting the Omer Begin?

When Does Counting the Omer Begin?

The omer or “sheaf” offering takes place ממחרת השבת, “after the Shabbat” (Leviticus 23:15). Jewish interpreters have debated the exact meaning of this phrase for two millennia, resulting in four different dates being adopted by one Jewish sect or another.

Prof.
Marvin A. Sweeney
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Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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When and Where the Israelites Dwelt in Sukkot

When and Where the Israelites Dwelt in Sukkot

Biblical narratives describe the Israelites living in tents in the wilderness and make no mention of sukkot, “booths.” So when and where did God “settle the Israelite people in booths”(Leviticus 23:43)? The answer: Kadesh! Although Israel journeys through the wilderness for forty years, they arrive at Kadesh early on and dwell there for more than thirty-five years.

Dr.
David Ben-Gad HaCohen
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The Prohibition of Shaving in the Torah and Halacha

The Prohibition of Shaving in the Torah and Halacha

The Torah prohibits a mourning ritual called tonsuring, i.e., the pulling out or cutting of hair to express sorrow. Rabbinic interpretation understood these verses as a prohibition for men to shave their beards or temples with a razor. Ibn Ezra, however, uncharacteristically rejects the rabbinic interpretation of these verses, and Shadal, who accepts ibn Ezra's reading, goes as far as to say that he himself shaves with a razor.

Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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Emor

אמור

Leviticus 21:1-24:23

אֵלֶּה מוֹעֲדֵי יְ־הוָה מִקְרָאֵי קֹדֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר תִּקְרְאוּ אֹתָם בְּמוֹעֲדָם׃

ויקרא כג:ד

These are the set times of YHWH, the sacred occasions, which you shall celebrate each at its appointed time.

Lev 23:4

Leviticus

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