Tzav – The Illness That Was Egypt

The korban todah, or “thanksgiving” offering described in the parsha (Vayikra 7:12), according to the Gemara (Brachos 54b), is the proper response to one of four categories of danger (though other situations may well be incorporated within them) from which one has emerged safely: 1) going to sea, 2) traveling in a desert, 3) enduring a serious illness and 4) being confined to prison. Those categories are based on Tehillim 107.

It’s both interesting and timely that the Jewish national thanksgiving which is Pesach involves each of those categories. A sea had to be crossed, a desert, subsequently, had to be traversed, Egypt is described by the Midrash as having been a virtual prison, from which no one had previously escaped, and the Jewish people are described as having sunk to the lowest spiritual level in Egypt — a sickness of the national soul — necessitating their immediate exodus from the spiritually decrepit land. 

But something is strange here. The korban todah, unique among offerings, requires as an accompaniment four groups of flour-offerings. And, equally unique, one of those groups must be chametz, leavened breads. (Other flour offerings, aside from Shavuos’ shtei halechem, are not permitted to rise.)

And on Pesach, of course, chametz is forbidden not only to consume but even to own.

If Pesach is a national parallel of an individual’s korban todah, why would the latter include something that is anathema to the former?

What occurs is that the “illness” that a korban todah offerer survived was a physical one, whereas the national malady we experienced in Egypt was entirely spiritual.  The inclusion of chametz in the todah-offering might reflect the fact that the danger was to bodies (chametz being associated with physical desires); the dearth of it on Pesach, the fact that the danger was essentially to our souls. (The Alshich, in fact, identifies each of the four flour-offerings with one of the todah- obligating escaped dangers, and associates “enduring illness” with the chametz offering.)

Soon enough, we will be celebrating Hashem’s rescue of our ancestors from the illness that was Egypt, a spiritual malady. And when we recount that history at our Pesach seder tables and declare our thanksgiving in Hallel, there will be nary a crumb of chametz to be found in our homes.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vayikra – A Most Meaningful Mineral

The word “sacrifices” used for korbanos, the mainstay topic of parshas Vayikra, is a misnomer. Korban doesn’t carry the meaning of “giving up something.” Its most accurate, if awkward, translation would be “bringer of closeness.”

How closeness is effected by korbanos may have to do, at least in a simple sense, with the hierarchy of creation noted in many Jewish sources, domeim, tzomei’ach, chai, medaber: “still” (mineral), “growing” (vegetation), “living” (animal) and “speaking” (human). 

By establishing the korban-bringer as subjugating and employing the lower realms (which are all represented in korbanos), he is placing himself closer to Hashem, in Whose image he was created.

Interestingly, the “still,” or mineral component of korbanos, is a necessary component of all korbanos, both animal and vegetable (i.e. menachos, or flour offerings): salt.   “On your every offering shall you offer salt” – Vayikra 2:13).

Rishonim like Ramban and Rabbeinu Bachya, who assert that salt can be seen as a combination of water and fire may have based that description on the simple observation that salt can be obtained through saltwater and can “burn” vegetation and skin. Or maybe the description is meant as symbolic, and part of a mystical mesorah.

But whatever the source of their assertion, they see salt as representing a combination of opposites, of antagonists, which informs the use in parshas Vayikra of the word bris, or “covenant,” in the pasuk quoted above, to refer to the mineral.

The Kli Yakar explains that the “covenant [of opposites]” that salt represents conveys the idea that Dualist philosophies like Manichaeism are false. Hashem is King over all; what may seem like irreconcilable opposites are all ultimately under His control. 

I find it intriguing that, in the paradigm of contemporary physics, salt is indeed a compound of two disparate (if not “opposite,” whatever that might mean in the periodic table) elements: sodium and chlorine.  Both are highly reactive. (Countless chemistry teachers got the attention of their students by dropping a piece of sodium into a container of water.) 

And each is invariably fatal if ingested. Both, in other words, are poisons.

And yet, the ionic compound that results from the two elements’ “covenant” is a mineral that is necessary for life, that flavors our food, that preserves perishables… and that must be part of every korban. 

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Vayakhel – Not All Donations Welcome

Sometimes money amassed through questionable means is donated to good causes like charities or educational institutions. Perhaps the donors’ subconscious, or even conscious, intent is to somehow render their ill-gotten gains “kosher” in some way.

The Zohar informs us of the folly of such thinking.

On Moshe’s exhortation near the beginning of parshas Vayakhel that the people donate materials for the construction of the Mishkan – “Take from yourselves a portion for Hashem…” (Shemos 35:5), the mystical text states:

“From yourselves” —  from what is [truly] yours, not from [what you have obtained from] usury and not from [what you have obtained from] theft.  Because if it is [obtained through unethical means, the giver] has no merit, but, on the contrary, woe to him, as he has come to recall his sin.”  

Not only would the Mishkan’s holiness have been compromised if any of the precious metals or fabrics used for its construction were besmirched by its donor’s bad behavior in obtaining it, but also, any donation of wrongly obtained material would be a reminder of the donor’s sin.

The same point is said to have been made, particularly pointedly and wittily, by the Kotzker Rebbe, on Chazal’s statement that, at Sinai, the people saw with their eyes what normally could only be heard with ears.  That way, allegedly said the Kotzker, there would be no way for anyone to hear the lo (“Thou shall not”) in lo signov – “Thou shall not steal” – as being spelled lamed-vav, meaning, “For Him, steal.”

It would seem that the notion of justifying economic crimes with virtuous use of ill-gotten gains is nothing new. It existed in the 19th century — and even in Biblical times.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Ki Sisa – Of Idols and Ideals

Describing our ancestors’ worshipping of the egel hazahav, the golden calf, the Torah relates that “Early next day, the people offered up olos [burnt offerings] and shelamim [peace sacrifices], they sat down to eat and drink, and then arose litzachek [to enjoy themselves]” (Shemos 32:6).

The legendary Novardhoker Maggid, Rav Yaakov Galinsky, zt”l, would comment in the name of an “early master” that the order of the happenings in that pasuk is significant, andhas broad historical pertinence.

The egel hazahav, he explained, was the first veering of the Jewish people away from Hashem, the first Jewish pursuit of a foreign-to-Torah ideal, one that bordered on idolatry. But it is an unfortunate prototype for other such ideal-idolatries in subsequent times.

Many a social movement has been birthed or eagerly embraced by Jews. And each began with with a lofty ideal, a figurative olah, a sacrifice entirely consumed on the altar, signifying selfless devotion.

With the passage of time, though, the heady days of every “ism”’s youth give way to a more jaded, or at least “realistic,” approach, signified by shelamim, a sacrifice where the supplicant is able to enjoy some of the meat. The high ideal, of course, is still heralded as paramount, the flag of altruism still flies, but there is an expectation of some “return on the investment” in the cause.

And then come the final stages, when the loftiness of the movement’s revolutionary goal deteriorates into “eating and drinking” – where self-interest and a “what’s in it for me?” mentality reigns — and, ultimately, into a litzachek frame of mind, when materialism and lust become the society’s entire foci.

The golden calf was the first worshipped ism, but it was far from the last.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran

Jean-Noël Zachur Latov

I had to do a double take after reading that a group of 151 former ministers, ambassadors, and diplomats accused the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, of spreading disinformation about United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese.

Monsieur Barrot’s alleged misstep was his reaction to Signora Albanese’s comments on February 7, 2026 at an Al Jazeera forum in Doha, Qatar, on a panel devoted to “the Palestinian cause.”

True to loathsome form and to the great pleasure of her audience, the signora, like others on the panel, including a Hamas leader and an Iranian minister, railed against Israel.

Ho hum.

She accused the Western world of amplifying a “pro-apartheid genocidal narrative” and bemoaned the challenges that the “global community” faces today.

And she concluded that “We who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms, and weapons, we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy [italics mine].”

Monsieur Barrot called Signora Albanese’s remarks “outrageous and reprehensible.” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said her “behavior, statements and initiatives aren’t appropriate for the position she holds,” and Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said the lady’s position is “no longer tenable.” France, Austria, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom have also called for the special rapporteur’s dismissal.

Even U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, not known for empathy for Israel, said (through a spokesperson; he may have feared choking on the words) that “We don’t agree with much of what [Albanese] says, and wouldn’t have used the language that she’s using in describing the situation.”

Thus my need to reread, with incredulity, the 151 former ministers’, ambassadors’, and diplomats’ and entertainers’ (always experts on foreign affairs) rush to the defense of the special rapporteur, claiming that the media had truncated and distorted her comments.

In an open letter, the group accused Monsieur Barrot of spreading inaccurate and manipulated information, and condemned its use to discredit the UN official.

“The dissemination of disinformation by senior officials,” they wrote, “undermines international law, weakens human rights protections, and threatens the credibility of the multilateral system itself.”

Signora Albanese herself fumed that “European governments accuse me – based on statements I never made – with a virulence and conviction that they have NEVER used against those who have slaughtered 20,000+ children in 858 days” – tellingly citing the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry’s death toll claim.

So how did the signora defend her words? She contended that what she had meant by humanity’s “common enemy” was not – G-d forbid! – Israel (the topic of her rant), but rather “THE SYSTEM [caps hers] that has enabled the genocide in Palestine.”

Oh.

Even in her attempt to “explain” her words, the signora felt it important to use the disgustingly deceitful word “genocide” for Israel’s war against Hamas. Hardly surprising, considering that, during the October 7 pogrom, she urged that the murdering of innocents be placed in its “context.” And that she dismissed reported acts of the invaders’ viciousness documented by U.N Watch and the ADL as “fabrications.”

With that background, and in a speech that was devoted entirely to besmirching Israel, the special rapporteur’s claim that it was only a “SYSTEM” she was identifying as humanity’s enemy and not the usual object of her animus (and the subject of her speech) is ludicrous.

Three cheers for Monsieur Barrot, who stuck to his guns, posting on his social media, in response to the risible “contextualizing” of the special rapporteur’s Hitlerian comment: “Stop fake news. I did not truncate or distort Ms. Albanese’s comments. I simply condemned them because they are reprehensible.”

In an even semi-sane world, Signora Albanese would be reassigned to flipping pizza dough. Back in 2024, former special envoy for combating antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt described remarks the signora made as “openly antisemitic.” And last year, she was placed under U.S. sanctions, with the State Department condemning her “unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.”

In some places, it’s customary to stage Purim shpiels where contemporary figures take the place of Megillas Esther’s protagonists. With Monsieur Barrot and Signora Albanese occupying space in my head, were I in charge of central casting for such a play, I have a good idea about whom I’d choose for Charvonah. And Vashti.

(c) 2026 Ami Magazine

Titzaveh – Redolence and Relationship

After the Torah prescribes the details of the various vessels attendant to the mishkan (tabernacle), of the construction of the mishkan itself, of the mizbeach (altar), of the daily lighting of the menorah, of the bigdei kehuna (kohein vestments), of the procedure of the miluim (inaugural sacrifices) and of the tamid (the two daily sacrifices), it circles back at the very end of our parshah to something that would seem to have belonged at the beginning of the mishkan-description: the mizbeach haketores – the golden incense-altar that is to stand in the kodesh, the “Holies” part of the mishkan.

It is clearly a singular entity. Not only in its placement, directly facing the Holy of Holies (in fact, the final pasuk of the parshah calls the incense altar itself a kodesh kodashim, [“holy of holies”]), but in the fact that its main purpose is for something unique, a pure aroma-offering.

While animal and flour offerings are described as producing a rei’ach nicho’ach, an “aroma of contentment,” only on the golden altar is the offering itself one of pure fragrance, the ketores.

The sense of smell is special too. It is ethereal, ill-understood by science (theories of how brains can distinguish among many thousands of odors have come and gone, with no final clarity to date) and evocative of strong emotions. Think, on the one hand, of baking bread or lilacs blooming; and, on the other, of sewage or skunks. And evocative, too, of memories – Proust’s tea and madeleine comprise literature’s most famous example of olfactory-related sensory experience, but we’ve all had similar experiences.

There’s a seeming paradox to smell. It is exquisitely sensitive, even in humans. And yet, it requires proximity to the odor-generator. One can see stars at a distance of thousands of light years, and hear a rumble of thunder from lightning that has struck miles away. But one cannot smell something unless it is relatively close.

But in truth there is no paradox there. Because our eyes and ears are perceiving only generated waves of light or sound; our noses are ingesting actual pieces of what we smell – microscopic ones, to be sure, but actual pieces all the same.

Odors, moreover, take a direct route to the limbic system, the deepest part of the brain. 

Smell thus entails the penetration of the odor-source into the organ that makes us… us. As such, the ketores might symbolize relationship of the closest sort. The word “korban,” so often translated as “sacrifice,” in reality means “closeness-causing.”

And so, the ketores may be the ultimate korban.  In fact, the word ketores itself, whose simple meaning is “burning” or “smoking,” in Aramaic can mean “knot” or “bond.”

On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, the holiest man of the people, the Kohein Gadol, brings an offering in the holiest place on earth, the Kodesh HaKodashim. 

That korban, the only one ever offered in that place, is ketores.

© 2026 Rabbi Avi Shafran