Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

Parashat Mattot records, inter alia, G-d’s command to Moshe to wage war: “Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: Avenge the vengeance of the Children of Israel against the Midianites; afterward you will be ...

Parshat Mattot begins with the verses (Bamidbar 30:2-3), “And Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes of the children of Yisra᾽el, saying, “This is the matter which the Lord has commanded. If a man ...

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its ...

Each week The Arty Semite connects the Torah reading — however tenuously — with a classic work of rock and roll. This week’s parsha, Mattot, opens with laws on vows and how to annul them. The central ...

Our Guest this week is Rabbi Elisha Friedman, leader of the Kesher Israel congregation in Harrisburg, PA. Rabbi Friedman, the son of a Rabbi, is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s (YU) Rabbi Isaac ...

I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations. Gunther Plaut’s UAHC commentary interprets the phrase as raising the question of free will and predestination. I am not so sure. It hardly constitutes ...

Judaism Sidrah Mattot-Massei Sidrah Mattot-Massei “Every daughter from the tribes of the children of Israel who inherits property, shall marry a member of her father’s tribe” Numbers 36:8 July 12, ...

On Sunday night, my family went to the July 4th celebration at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert was by the LA Philharmonic, accompanied by Vince Gil, and concluded with fireworks. The music was ...

“The children of Reuben and the children of Gad possessed much cattle, and they saw the land of Ya’zer and the land of Gilead, and behold, it was a land for pasture…. And they said [to Moshe]: ‘If we ...