Tora

The Tora enjoins the Israelites upon their entrance into the Land of Israel to love the stranger—36 times. Moses gives the people a historical context to this commandment, he reminds them to love or in some instances to not oppress the stranger “for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt.” This thread of…

For many Jews across the world, a central element of Ḥanukka is the kindling of fire throughout the eight nights of the holiday. While many of us—Sephardic and Ashkenazic alike—are familiar with the method of lighting taught by Hillel, one Sephardic community explicitly deviates from this widespread custom. For Spanish Jews who arrived in Aleppo…

There is an interesting relationship between the Qorban Pesaḥ (pascal sacrifice) and the Bayiṯ (house) in the Tora. Among the laws regarding qorban pesaḥ, we find that there must be one lamb per bayiṯ, the Israelites must mark their battim (houses) with the lamb’s blood, the lamb must be eaten in the bayiṯ, and it…

Pesaḥ is around the corner and one of the sections of the Haggaḏa is ‘Moṣi Maṣa’ (lit. taking out [the] maṣa [to be eaten]). The great Moroccan ḥakham Yoseph Messas homiletically interprets this phrase by playing on the double meaning of maṣa. Maṣa, to most people, means the unleavened bread normally eaten on Pesaḥ, but maṣa…