Congregation Zera Avraham

Our parsha covers several seemingly unrelated topics. We have the census of the Levites. It then moves to the laws of the sotah, this cringey section to modern ears that details how to handle a husband’s suspicion that his wife has been unfaithful. He brings her before the kohen who makes a concoction of water and dust from the floor of the Mishkan. He then writes a curse on parchment and dissolves the words in the solution. She is required to drink it. If she is guilty it is

Today we begin Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers. Bamidbar means “in the wilderness” which comes from the opening words of our parsha, וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר יְהוָֹ֧ה אֶל־משֶׁ֛ה בְּמִדְבַּ֥ר סִינַ֖י… And God spoke to Moshe in the wilderness of Sinai. It is called Numbers in English because it begins with the taking of a census. We always begin this book just before Shavuot, which is tomorrow night. This is appropriate as the Torah was given in the midbar, the wilderness. There are few

In our parsha this week God warns Israel of the results of their disobedience, but then He offers these words: “But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant wit