Author: Robert Pinkus

Behar At the heart of Judaism is our faith that the Torah is the eternal word of Hashem Creator of the universe. The 8th and 9th of the 13 principles of faith articulated by Maimonides address this. they are: 8. The belief in the divine origin of the Torah. 9. The belief in the immutability of the Torah. Yet some question of the Divine origin of the Torah and find it difficult to accept. The question gnaws away at their hearts even God forbid affecting and eroding their observance or love for their Judaism. Perhaps Moses a most intelligent man wrote the Torah? [Note: Judaism welcomes questions. After all God created us with intellects and so it is also important to create an intellectual framework for our faith. However it always important to remember that underlying motivation for our observance of Mitzvos should not be dependent on understanding. Rather we observe Mitvzos due to our deep seated faith in God which is unshakable. This faith derives from our soul which is...

Kedoshim  This weeks Parsha contains dozens of Mitzvot. To be precise 13 positive commandments and 38 negative prohibitions out of the total of 613 commandments. These Mitzvot include: mandatory gifts to the poor, many interpersonal laws most famous being Love your neighbour as yourself, not to gossip, honesty in ones business dealings, sexual morality , to avoid idol worship and many more. It is difficult to discern a pattern to why these specific Mitzvot are grouped here and in a particular order. To understand this we must look at the opening verse of the Parsha You shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy (Vayikra 19:2) There has been two basic approaches over the ages to this verse and whether it counts as an actual commandment. Ramban (Nachmanides 13th Cent Rabbi,Kabbalist and commentator) explains this verse as an actual positive commandment to be Holy. Rambam (Maimonides 12th Cent) did not count ~"to be Holy" as one of the 613 specific Mitzvot because he believed that...

Emor The Torah attaches great importance as to how we utilise our power of speech. Last week in Kedoshim we were commanded "You shall not go around as a gossipmonger amidst your people." Lashon Harah (lit evil speech) is considered one of the worst Sins in the torah. It damages both the speaker the listener and the one who is spoken about. The world was created by God through speech. And God said let there be light etc. We reflect this idea in our morning Teffilah in the opening blessing to the verses of Praise (pesukei dezimra)- "Blessed is the one that spoke and the world came into being" This teaches us that words have creative power. The saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me" is the antithesis of what Judaism teaches. The Torah even allows us to extend the prohibitions of the Torah through the power of a vow. This is a "mere" utterance with a particular formula that makes...