All Your Beis

"And Bilaam rose in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went... and his two servants with him" (Bemidbar 22:21-22) Bilaam ma...

The haftara for the first day of Sukkot (Zechariah 14:4) describes a massive and seemingly bizarre miracle occurring in the messianic age: ...

Over Shabbat I noticed a lot of common language between Devarim 7 (Vaetchanan-Ekev) and the end of "Sefer Habrit" in parshat Mishp...

No less than three different lists of nesiim appear in the book of Bemidbar. In Bemidbar 2-7, the twelve tribal leaders are listed. In ...

After the war with Midian, God commanded to divide the captive people and animals between the warriors, the people, the Levites, and a ...

Ever since my childhood I have appreciated the Koren siddur's typesetting of Emet veYetziv: Without adding a word, it makes clear the ...

A kohen cannot marry a divorcee, "zonah", or "chalalah". A kohen gadol, additionally, cannot marry a widow. Why do these...

The blessings before and after each aliyah are very similar. Today in synagogue someone accidentally began reciting the wrong one, which got...

It is commonly stated that the events of Megillat Ruth take place around Shavuot. However, this is not quite accurate. "...And they c...

Sometimes in shul, my glance to fall across a parsha sheet that's lying around. In my current Anglo-friendly shul, there is usually just...

I know of two stories - one in Tanach, one in midrash - in which an angel causes a coal to be touched to a prophet's mouth: In the yea...

Sometimes in the Torah, a single event is described more than once. For example, after the event occurs (i.e. Avraham's servant meeting ...

The Biblical flood story is fundamentally incompatible with science. Not enough water exists on earth to cover the land entirely. And no tra...

My father was a wandering Aramean (26:5) These are the opening words of mikra bikurim , describing how God took out us out of Egypt and g...

1. The triple structure Three times Bilam went to curse Israel, and each time God caused Bilam to bless Israel rather than curse them. I...

The congregation did not have water, and the gathered against Moshe and Aharon. The people fought with Moshe, and said: "If only we had...

This shabbat I came to a clearer pshat understanding of the last chapter of Sefer Vayikra (27) than I had in the past, and I want to summari...

Last Chanukah I happened to be visiting London, and I went on a tour of the British Museum with a Chanukah theme. It was interesting to le...

The Bitcoin cryptocurrency has recently been in the news as its price continues to escalate. I was lucky enough to hear a friend of mine, a ...

I recently finished reading Moreh Nevuchim. Here are my notes, organized by page number in the Friedlander translation. If you want to look ...