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The Torah talks a lot about love, love of God, love our neighbours, and love the stranger. But what does love, Ahavah mean? And why is it so often paired with the word Yirah, which is usually translated as fear, but in reality, it means respect? Love in English tends to focus on what one expects and receives.…
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From The Stoning of the Blasphemer, in The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, by Charles Foster, Hartford, Connecticut 1873. (Wikimedia Commons)
Whether you like the detail and nuance and application of the legalistic, ritualistic Book of Leviticus, or you find it somewhat (ahem) tedious, Parshat Emor would seem to be a fine sample of the book, with its delineation of the restrictions on the kohanim (priests) and the summary of the festivals for the whole nation. Or at least that is true until the very end of the parshah, where we find one of the more dramatic narratives of the Torah: the story of the Blasphemer (worthy of future consideration, perhaps, is the fact t