There is a diagram that appears on the walls of synagogues, in the margins of medieval manuscripts, in the notebooks of mystics, and increasingly on the screens of people who encountered it through a passing reference and found themselves unable to stop thinking about it. It is called the Tree of Life. It consists of
Kabbalah 101: The Grammar of Emanation Read More »
Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.—Matthew 7:13–14, NKJV The Sermon on the
You shall be holy, for I the L’rd your G‑d am holy.—Leviticus 19:2 Parashat Kedoshim is among the densest portions in the weekly parashah cycle. In the span of a single chapter, Torah covers the corners of the field left for the poor, the prohibition on theft and lying, the fair treatment of workers, the
For on this day purgation will be effected for you, to purify you of all your sins; before YHVH you will become pure.—Leviticus 16:30 The rabbi has been standing at the functional center since morning. By the time neilah approaches—the closing prayer, the sealing of the gates—the exhaustion visible on him is not the tiredness of a
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This shall be the law of the metzora on the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest.—Leviticus 14:2 The metzora has been standing at the edge of the camp for an unspecified period of time. He is not simply sick. The tradition is precise about this. He is the person whose corrupted speech—speech
There is a particular kind of disruption that arrives without announcement. Not the slow erosion of things wearing out, not the anticipated loss that grief has already begun to accommodate—but the sudden shift in which the world you were navigating simply reorganizes itself around an absence you did not choose. One moment the path is
When the Forest Arrives Read More »
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can
The Measure You Use Read More »
Speak to the Israelite people thus: When a woman at childbirth bears a male, she shall be impure seven days; she shall be impure as at the time of her condition of menstrual separation. … She shall remain in a state of blood purification for thirty-three days… Leviticus 12:2, 4 There is a moment that
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Parashat Tazria opens in territory that makes most modern readers uncomfortable. Leviticus 12 addresses the impurity of a woman after childbirth. Leviticus 13 turns to skin afflictions: inflammations, rashes, shiny spots, discolorations. The priest examines, pronounces, sends away or admits. Most commentators treat it as a historical curiosity—a diagnostic manual for conditions that no longer
Every tradition has a name for the force that opposes the divine. It has many names, actually—and the sheer proliferation of them is itself the first clue that something more complex than a simple monster is being described. The adversary appears as a courtroom officer, a cosmic rebel, a serpent, a tempter, a dragon. He
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