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My Yom Kippur Speech

Jews are big on introspection. And Yom Kippur is the most introspective day of them all. On this day, we consider the past year, and we dig deep to find faults, search to examine aspects of our behavior which could use correction or improvement. After all, we are told, repeatedly, that our lives can be…

Burial Part 8: Israel and Egypt?

  If any party has sinned and is adjudged for death and is put to death, and you string up the body on a tree, you must not let the corpse remain on the tree, but must bury it the same day. For a strung-up body is a curse to God and you shall not…

Burial Part 7: Spiritually Blocking the Land?

You shall not spiritually block the land [by leaving a body strung up on a tree]. What on earth can this last part of this verse mean? Why is leaving a body on a tree a spiritual block to the earth? Let’s unpack the language: The “spiritual block” is sometimes (mis)translated as “unclean.” But its…

Burial Part 6: Cursing G-d

A strung-up body is a curse of God. What does this mean? How is a body that is strung up a curse of G-d? Indeed, the verse is so odd that translations cannot even agree if the curse is of the hanged man, or a curse of G-d, or by G-d, or under G-d… What…

Burial Part 5: In That Day

You must bury it that day. This is a snippet of a verse that deals with a murderer who has been legally strung up to die. We are commanded in this snippet to bury the corpse that very day. The impact of this verse on Jewish Law is broad and deep. We do not merely…

Burial Part 4: Senseless Loss

“What a waste!” We hate it when potential has been ruined. The Torah has a word for it: neveilah. The word is first used by G-d in his plans to deal with the builders of the Tower of Babel: Let us, then, go down and neveilah their speech there, so that they shall not understand…

Burial Part 3: Stringing Up

The bow in the Torah is originally meant to provide a visual connection between man and G-d, the rainbow that reminds us of a divine promise. https://creativejudaism.org/2022/01/25/biblical-symbolism-a-bow/ There is an overall theme in the Torah, a theme of connection of disparate elements. For example, Adam is made from the dust of the earth, combined with…

Burial Part 2: Why Is Hanging Someone On a Tree Problematic?

Trees are not simple in the Torah. We are forbidden from using trees to make idols. We are told to never worship trees, and indeed, nothing in the Tabernacle/Mishkan had visible wood at all. That all seems to suggest a negative symbolism for trees in general. On the other hand, the first named trees are…

Burial Part 1: All Human Life Has Value – Even in Death

There is a verse in the Torah that has captivated me (and my study partners) for some time. It is as follows: If any party has sinned and is adjudged for death and is put to death, and you string up the body on a tree, you must not let the corpse remain on the…

Creative Conundrums Yom kippur What is Kippur in the Torah? Is there any example in the Torah of someone undoing the past? I don’t think there is. The best anyone seems to be able to do is try to find a constructive way forward. If this is true, does it tell us that we, ourselves,…