TOTALLY RELEVANT
In this week’s Parsha, Tetzave, HaShem instructs His people to create the necessary garments for the kohanim as well as the special inaugurating offerings to be offered at the Mishkan’s inauguration. Last week’s Parsha, this week’s Parsha as well as two more Parshios that we will read in two and three weeks have apparently no relevance to any-one else other than our ancestors living in the desert 3,300 years ago.
Continue reading Tetzave 5779BLINDING BRILLIANCE
In this week’s Parsha, Bo, when HaShem instructs Moshe to deliver the plague of choshech, darkness, He says ‘stretch out your hand on the heavens and there shall be darkness on the land of Egypt, and ‘vayameish choshech’. The word ‘vayameish’ actually means to take away. This would imply that Egypt was to be covered with darkness by taking away the darkness. How do we make sense out of this statement?
The miracle of this plague is truly confounding; how can it be light for the Jew in the room and dark for the Egyptian in the same room at the same time? While we do not necessarily deserve an answer to this conundrum perhaps we can understand it with the following Midrash.
MERIT ON CREDIT
In this week’s Parsha, Shemos, when HaShem tells Moshe to tell the Jewish people that He will redeem them, Moshe expresses concern that the people will not believe him. Why was it necessary for the people to believe Moshe that there would be a redemption? There was still a year of the most dramatic miracles in the form of the plagues that was going to transpire before they left Egypt, would that not be enough to convince the people?
Continue reading Shemos 5779