Thoughts on specific Torah portions, which originally appeared at Hatam Soferet. Some have a specifically scribal cast to them, some do not.

Parshat Vayishlah

...the Israelites refrain from eating the nerve in the thigh - the gid ha-nashe - to this day. So, this week is the ideal time for the post about Sewing, because gid is something scribes run into quite a lot. Scribal gid - "sinew" - is tendons; animal tendons, of course, not people ones, spun with glue... (November 2007)

Parshat Vayeshev

...struck by Judah being gratuitously nasty... (January 2008)

Parshat Vayeshev

..."Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him."... (December 2006)

Parshat Miketz and Hanukah

...The Torah gives us a narrative; when Paro absorbs that narrative and communicates it to another human being, he factors it through the prism of his own experience.... (December 2007)

Parshat Vayehi

...I find Yosef truly, truly objectionable, in so very many ways. Granted most of our ancestors had their bad sides, but Yosef's really awful. So why does he get so much space?... (January 2007)

Parshat Yitro

...I bet you've heard all about what a clever legal reformer Jethro was. We always skip straight to discussing that bit. But I reckon there's a more fundamental point to be made... (July 2006)

Parshat Behukotai

...I promised you a post on what parashat Behukotai has to do with chopsticks, and here it is... (June 2008)

Parshat Naso

...there's something interesting in nearly everything if you look for it, but this really is very boring... (July 2008)

Parshat Naso

...This is a post about a fun things scribes do with layout, but you need to know about Birkat Cohanim, the Priestly Blessing, before you read it. The Priestly Blessing is both a piece of Torah and a piece of liturgy. In the Torah, it's Numbers 6:24-26... (July 2008)

Parshat Beha'alotekha

...Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites: 'When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a long journey, they may still celebrate the LORD's Passover...In the Torah, there is a little dot above the word "long..." (January 2006)

Parshat Korah

...Warning: this post is only going to make sense if you know how to chant Torah... (June 2007)

Parshat Re'eh

...This is the land, these are the mitzvot. The mitzvot God told me and I told you. And this is the lovely land. To which God brought you from Egypt. Do the mitzvot...

Days of Awe

...When you're feeling utterly raw and beaten by life, what does teshuva mean? How can I repent when I barely have enough energy to talk?... (September 2007)

Days of Awe

...I find repair work to be a lot more taxing, physically and mentally, than writing from scratch, and it occurs to me that this is a metaphor for Life... (September 2006)

Days of Awe

...Every time someone starts to talk about the Akedah (i.e. the story of the sacrifice of Isaac which we read on Rosh haShana), my eyes glaze over... (September 2006)

Pesach

...The Holy One brought me out of Egypt and all I got was this lousy T-shirt... (April 2007)

Pesach

...Here I am in my comfortable middle-class American apartment, thinking about "my personal Egypt" like comfortable middle-class American Jews do... (April 2007)

Yom ha-Shoah

...Do you remember the point in your Holocaust education where you asked "Why didn't the ordinary Germans do anything to help the Jews?" (April 2006)