Daily Bread — Thursday, March 23, 2023
Good Morning. And the Lord said to Moses: “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat." (Leviticus 16:2) This and...
29 Adar — A Place Called “Beautiful”
It was on this day in the year 1799 that, in his campaign against the Ottoman Turks, Napoleon captured the city of Jaffa or, in Hebrew, Yafo, which means, “beautiful.” The city is indeed beautiful and I have been fortunate to have visited it many times. It’s not...
Daily Bread — Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Good Morning. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest." (Leviticus 14:1-2) Jewish tradition teaches that, if and when a leper was cleansed, he was to appear before the...
28 Adar — Love Your Enemies
It was on this day in the year 163 B.C. that Antiochus V (not to be confused with Antiochus the IV of Hanukkah fame), granted freedom of religion and political autonomy to the Jews living in the land of Israel. This was to cancel the decrees of his father, who had...
Daily Bread — Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Good Morning. And if leprosy breaks out all over the skin, and the leprosy covers all the skin of the one who has the sore, from his head to his foot, wherever the priest looks, then the priest shall consider; and indeed if the leprosy has covered all his body, he...
27 Adar — The Furnace of Affliction
It was on this day in the year 1979 that Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed the peace treaty between their countries. Since that time, Israel has enjoyed three decades of relative peace with Egypt. We say, “relative peace,” because Egypt has...
Daily Bread — Monday, March 20, 2023
Good Morning. And if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. (Leviticus 13:8) If Biblical leprosy was not the result of some air-borne bacteria but was the manifestation of a person's...
26 Adar — Choose Life
It was on this day in the year 1940 that the Nazis issued an order barring Jewish physicians from treating Ayrans and Aryan physicians from treating Jews, thus accentuating the separation between the two peoples. The Nazi provocation for this was their hatred of the...
Daily Bread — Sunday, March 19, 2023
Good Morning. When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. (Leviticus 13:2) From a biblical...
25 Adar — Babylon Resurrected
It was on this day in the year 561 B.C. that Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon and the conqueror of Jerusalem, died. Years before, Nebuchadnezzar had been told by the prophet Daniel that he, and by extension Babylon, was represented in a dream by a head of gold,...
Daily Bread — Saturday, March 18, 2023
Good Morning. Speak to the children of Israel, saying: "If a woman has conceived, and borne a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of her customary impurity she shall be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2) If there are concepts and principles...
24 Adar — One In Messiah
It was on this day in the year 1451 that Pope Nicholas the Fifth issued a bull banning all social interaction between Christians and Jews. His motivation for setting this boundary was a fear that Christians would become Judaized. Indeed, any Christian who converted to...