Claim OwnershipWeekly Torah Commentaries
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Reflections on the weekly Torah portions from a diverse group of Messianic Jewish rabbis, scholars, and lay people. Our contributors bring fresh insights to familiar texts, drawing connections to events across the whole of Scripture (including the Gospels and Epistles), and suggesting practical applications of these insights to our postmodern lives.
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Our parasha portrays a rarely seen and crucial harmony between divine
desire and human motivation. It is a harmony between the exterior — the
expressed will of God, and the interior — the heart and will of human
beings. This harmony portrayed in Torah reaches its crescendo in the
blessings of the New Covenant, and its final cadence in the world to come.
As a congregational leader, I am often asked questions pertaining to
belief. People want to know the biblically correct perspective on
eschatology, salvation, and the nature of God. I am always happy to answer
these questions to the best of my ability, but it’s far less frequently
that I’m asked more practical questions: How should I live? What should I
do? What sort of person should I strive to be?
Parashat Tetzaveh and Shabbat Zachor, our readings just before Purim,
together offer a simple but urgent charge. Remember who you are. Remember
whom you serve. Remember why you were redeemed. And do not forget.
In Moses’ day the heartfelt donations were used to construct a special
place for Adonai to dwell with his people as they continued on their
journey. Today, instead of giving precious materials to construct a
physical dwelling we are learning to live less for our own worldly
successes and physical desires and more to become one with the Spirit of
God.
When we first moved to Ann Arbor, more than forty years ago, there was a
Chinese restaurant nearby with a giant lobster in a tank in its foyer. The
creature was nearly three feet long and must have weighed close to twenty
pounds. No one knew for sure how old it was—perhaps seventy-five years,
give or take. So why am I talking about lobsters and what does it have to
do with our parasha?
Each time we stand before the open ark, we stand again at Sinai. We repeat
Israel’s ancient pledge, affirming that all God has spoken, we will do.
Parashat Yitro reminds us that this pledge demands more than belief. It
demands shared leadership, covenantal responsibility, and lives shaped by
service.
In the modern world, no text has spoken more profoundly to people about
their potential to achieve freedom. The message to Israel for all time is
clear. The God who has raised you up in fulfillment of his promises to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not forget his promises to you.
In Parashat Bo, a portion filled with plagues, Pharaoh, and Passover
instructions, we are reminded that woven into the fabric of our history,
God has provided tangible, sensory traditions that remind us of who he is
and who he called us to be.
Just as Israel experienced an initial redemption in Egypt even while still
enslaved, so we, too, are invited to live within the redemption God has
already enacted in Messiah. Our life is shaped not only by anticipation,
but by participation: learning to recognize what God has done, what he is
doing now, and how we are to live as his redeemed people today. Our
ransomed life is now.
It is only after Moses turns aside that God speaks. Moses first hears God
through the miracle of the bush that burns without being consumed. Only
then does he truly listen—by pausing, turning, and giving his full
attention to what is unfolding before him.
The idea of a long process toward a distant goal feels daunting unless
we’re rewarded along the way. What happened to perseverance—to enduring
hardship so that, when we look back, we can see how much stronger we’ve
become because of it?
Parashat Miketz — meaning “at the end” — opens with the words “At the end
of two full years…” referring to the final stretch of Joseph’s imprisonment
following the false accusations from Potiphar’s wife. But behind those two
years lies a far longer story of waiting, injustice, disappointment, and
perseverance.
Chanukah is usually told as the story of a jar of oil. Yet the oil miracle,
beautiful as it is, appears only in the Talmud—recorded centuries after the
Maccabean revolt. If we look more closely at the earliest sources,
something surprising emerges. Chanukah was once focused not on the menorah,
but on the altar.
Each of us will struggle with God, but hang on in your wrestling—don’t let
go until you realize the blessing! Be reconciled. If you wronged someone,
seek forgiveness; if you were wronged, give forgiveness freely without
prompting.
Rosebud was the name of Citizen Kane’s childhood sled, an emblem of simpler
days, a symbol of a time when he knew joy, safety, and belonging. What
makes that symbol powerful is not its sentimental value. It is what it
represents: the longing for a spiritual home.
The relationship between Jacob and Esau is a foundational relationship in
the Scriptures: Israel and the Nations in shalom, under one Shepherd,
sharing in each other's destinies through humility and turning toward the
other.
Sarah is a woman well worth remembering, one who continues to be an example
to each generation. Sarah’s story is a picture of what it takes to journey
through life as an imperfect human. All the while, we seek God; He knows
us, He knows our value to His plan.
If Abraham and Sarah could see our world today, I think they might weep.
We’ve traded tents for walls and neighbors for networks. We are more
“connected” than any generation before, yet loneliness has become the
epidemic of our age.
In the one place where life is lived daily under threat, where rockets,
wars, and uncertainty are part of the national daily experience, Israel
stands unique among western nations in maintaining a sustainable, even
vibrant, birth rate.
Quietly tucked into one of the last verses of Parashat Noach is the
template for God’s plan of calling and leadership. It is also a reflection
of the enduring concept in Judaism known as l’dor v’dor – from generation
to generation.
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