Daniel Pinner

Shavuot:

The Torah, teaching by example

The true leader leads by example.

Jerusalem Liberation Day:

Hidden and revealed miracles

When future historians come to write of our era, they will write of all the miracles but they will also discover another hidden miracle.

Parashat Emor:

Kohanim and independence

Though we are once again sovereign in our ancestral homeland for the first time since the days of Queen Shlom-Zion, the murderers still stalk us. And though tragedy strikes, we are in an incomparably better situation than we have been at any time since Queen Shlom-Zion.

Acharei-Mot–Kedoshim:

Preparing for Redemption

This prophetic message of the Return to Zion in the Haftorah was tailor-made for this Shabbat, falling between Yom ha-Atzma’ut and Yom Herut Yerushalayim.

Yom ha-Atzma’ut and Tazria-Metzora:

“From where will come my help?” (Psalms 121:1)

In a panic the Arameans fled, as we read in this Shabbat's haftarah - and the Arabs did the same in the War of Independence, linking the two.

Yom Hazikaron 5785

Thoughts during the siren

Two memorial days fall together each year, to remind us, beyond any doubt, how much it costs us to have our own state, and how much it costs us without.

Parashat Shmini:

The power of the eighth day

Parashat Shmini opens on the eighth day, the 1st of Nissan.

Parashat Vayikra:

Introduction to Redemption

Why is it appropriate that we begin reading this Book on the Shabbat of the month of redemption (whether Nissan or Adar)?

Shabbat HaChodesh:

Glass shards and royalty

We, the Jewish nation, reckon our national calendar from Nissan.

Shabbat Parah:

Coming back to life

The Maftir for this Shabbat reminds all Jews of the necessity to purify themselves in readiness for Pesach. But why the chosen Haftarah?

Parashat Ki Tissa & Purim:

Towards redemption

The Talmud cites Reish Lakish (Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish): “It was known and revealed before He by Whose Word the world was created that Haman would one day weigh out the shekalim to annihilate Israel; therefore He placed their shekalim before [Haman’s] shekalim” (Megillah 13b).

Parashat Zachor:

Confronting hatred

It is intriguing that the Torah, usually so concise and sparing with its words, enjoins us both to remember Amalek and not to forget Amalek. But surely the one implies the other!

This Shabbat:

Parashat Terumah, Shabbat Shekalim, and Rosh Chodesh Adar!

The confluence of Parashat Terumah, Rosh Chodesh Adar, and Parashat Shekalim is rare. What is its message this year?

Yitro:

The outsider

Sometimes, just sometimes, when the nation of Israel is at a low ebb, when we are vulnerable and uncertain, when we need strengthening, G-d sends us a leader like Yitor from outside who can provide that emboldenment.

Beshalach:

Shabbat Shirah

When G-d grants us victory over our enemies, when He destroys our enemies who oppress us, we are obligated to thank Him with ecstatic praise. Anything less denotes extreme ingratitude

Memorialising the Holocaust: Europe versus Israel

Who is the true son of Israel - the one who goes to the gas chambers or the one who fights in his defense? Opinion.

Parashat Vaera:

A tale of two staffs

Two staffs, two personalities, and only one of them who understood that annihilating our enemies is the way to bring peace into the world and was thus suitable to bring the plagues on Egypt.

Shemot:

Responding to evil: Then and now

None of us has the power to prevent this deal from happening. Not even the few Cabinet Ministers who ideologically oppose it can prevent it. So ar we guilty of it?

Concluding Genesis:

Becoming Israel, fighting for Israel – the meaning of Israel

The midrash teaches that the enemies of Israel have to be defeated by Israel (or one of Israel), and not by an outsider – even if that outsider happens to be an ally. That is the deep meaning of the name Israel.

Hanukkah and its aftermath: The mother of all price-tags

In historical terms, the Maccabean Revolt was the beginning of the end of the Seleucid Empire. Moral: Don't mess with the Jewish religion.

The Jews and the Greeks

G-d charged the Jews, with responsibility for the spiritual perfection of the world, and He charged the Greeks with responsibility for the physical perfection of the world. A harmonious symbiosis which collapsed when the Greeks sought control.

First night of Hanukkah: One candle or eight?

The famous dispute between the Sages is another instance where Hillel's school of thought sees the world as it is, Shammai's sees the world as it should ideally be. In today’s imperfect world, we follow Hillel’s rulings.

Parashat Vayeishev:

The impure sources of Redemption

First, how could the Mashiach be the product of a problematic union? Surely his ancestry has to be unblemished!

Vayishlach:

Redeeming captives

Did Shimon and Levi over-react by massacring Shechem and his entire city?

Lech Lecha:

The ultimate consolation

Much happens in the 24 years that Parashat Lech Lecha spans, and it can be summarised in one sentence: By the end of the Parashah, the Jewish nation had come into existence.

Parashat Noach:

Stand firm – and damn the consequences!

The Jew is enjoined to follow his G-d, even into the furnace if necessary – and damn the consequences, or bless the consequences as the case may be.

How could we celebrate?

And yet, in spite of all……Pirkei Avot concludes by citing the words of Ben Hei-Hei: “According to the pain is the reward” (Pirkei Avot 5:23).

Haftarah for 1st day of Sukkot:

Take heart!

Why did our Sages choose this Prophetic Reading as the Haftarah for first day Sukkot? Because it prophesies that all the terrorist gangs, all the nations, all the hostile armies combined are but a cipher.

Yom Kippur:

Genesis of Repentance

Who, on Yom Kippur of 5784, could possibly have foreseen what havoc and turmoil the year would bring?

Nitzavim-Vayeilech:

Two endings - and Shana Tova!

Shabbat Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech, in addition to being the final Shabbat of the year, marks two other endings as well.

Ki Teitsei:

Going out to war

Inside Israel we pray that we will bask in G-d’s warmth and that any wars we might still be constrained to fight will be outside our Land. We will “go out” to war, so that we will shed no blood in our house.

Re’eh:

A new level of kashrut

The Torah of the Land of Israel contextualises kashrut. Judaism is not merely a religion – it’s what elevates us as a nation, sanctifies us as a nation. What we are allowed to eat is part of what defines us as a nation.

Vaetchanan:

It’s not a coincidence

Though G-d visits all our sins upon us, punishes us for them, holds us to account for them, He does not and never will entirely annihilate us.

Operation Gomorrah

The free world, and Jews in particular, are fortunate that in 1943, during Operation Gomorroah, there was no Facebook, Instagram, X, or Tik-Tok , that the NYT, Haaretz, and The Guardian still had some sense of morality, and that the UN didn’t exist. Op-ed.

Parashat Pinchas: An unquenchable love for the Land

Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira differed in their views of who could have bequeathed such a passionate love of the Land of Israel to his daughters.

17th of Tammuz:

The Torah reading on the fast day

This reading conntains the message which we so desperately need in our times of disaster – the times of disaster which begin with the 17th of Tammuz.

Parashat Balak: The angel’s sword

The donkey, Joshua, and King David all see the sword שְׁלוּפָה (unsheathed) in the angel’s hand. Bil’am, too, sees the sword שְׁלֻפָה (unsheathed) in the angel’s hand.

Parashat Chukkat: A new generation

Our generation is the generation that was born and raised in Israel, unbowed by exile. And we have demonstrated our determination to win the war and rescue our captives. This week's parasha is the precedent.

The sons of Korach

Korach condemns so many of today’s Torah-leaders. Torah-leaders who look with equanimity at the exile, Torah-leaders who are perfectly content remaining in exile, But not his sons.

Parashat Shlach: Truth and consequences

When the Jews of a thousand years in the future look back at our present-day reality, what will they say and write about our generations? What consequences will we, today, bequeath to our ancestors?

Behaalotcha: From Sinai to Paran to Israel to Babylon to Germany

We have already missed two opportunities to return home and to possess our Land, the first in Parashat Beha’alot’cha and the second in the Haftarah. The third opportunity is now, today.

Shavuot:

Celebrate in spite of all

We might do well here to recall Shavuot 5708 (1948) - and compare it with Shavuot 1967.

Condolences to the Jew-haters

We rescued hostages. And you condemn us. You don’t really care about the “Palestinian Arabs” at all, do you. It’s not, and never has been, about them; it’s about hating Israel. Op-ed.

Yom Herut Yerushalayim: Hidden and revealed miracles

At the Red Sea, in the Holy Temples, in the Six Day War and in Israel today with every missile intercepted by our side - we are witness to G-d's miracles.

Parashat Behar: Two different Shabbatot

There iis a fundamental difference between these two Shabbatot.

Bitter ironies, bitter lessons, and self-hating Jews

The story of a Jew who rejected his identification with the Jewish nation. Needing to belong somewhere, he made common cause with the most vicious Jew-haters. A lesson for today. Op-ed.

Yom Hazikaron 2024

Thoughts during the siren

I think of the price of freedom, of independence. And then I think of the price of not having freedom. The price which we commemorated a week ago, on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Kedoshim: Preparing for Redemption

The prophetic message of the Return to Zion in the Haftorah we read could have been tailor-made for this Shabbat.

Shabbat Hagadol: Redemption then, redemption now

It is a fundamental component of Pesach that the redemption from Egypt – our first national redemption – is the paradigm for the final redemption,

The first day of Nissan - in Egypt

It is the first of Nissan in the year 2448 (1312 B.C.E.). Nine of the Ten Plagues have struck Egypt, and only the tenth, the Slaying of the Firstborn, the most devastating Plague of them all, is yet to come.

Parshat Shmini and Parshat Hachodesh - stages of Redemption

An analysis of the non kosher animals mentioned in the parasha is connected to the four questions - and Redemption. This will be the final exile, after which we will never again be defeated or exiled from our Land.

Purim: Why do they hate us?

Every nation, every culture which ever felt threatened by the knowledge of G-d was determined to exterminate, to kill, and to destroy all the Jews, from young to old, babies and women.

Shabbat Zachor: Perverted compassion

Refusing to kill Amalek, keeping Amalek alive, isn’t a surfeit of compassion. It’s the opposite: it is a perversion of compassion. Exterminating evil is the truest compassion.

Parshat Shekalim: One nation with one destiny

Jews the world over, estranged for decades if not generations, have been forced to return to the Jewish body, to recognise that their destiny is Jewish destiny.

Natural miracles

The IDF freed two hostages in Gaza in the middle of the night. A miracle? No question about it, but one that occurred by natural means, the cooperation of Intelligence and fighting forces.

Yitro: The greatest Heritages

The word מוֹרָשָׁה, morashah, meaning “heritage”, appears only twice in the Torah, referring to the two heritages of Israel. One cannot do without the other.

Beshalach: In time of war...

What, then, was uniquely harsh about the Plague of Hail?

Parashat Vayechi: Judah lies down like a lion

When G-d arises, when those who hate Him are blown away as smoke is, then Israel – Judah – can lie down peacefully, like a lion at rest.

The 10th of Tevet and Vayigash: The beginning and end of Exile

The 10th of Tevet marked the beginning of the end of the First Jewish Commonwealth.

First night of Hanukkah: One candle or eight?

Hillel sees the world as it is; Shammai sees the world as it should be. In our imperfect world, we follow Hillel’s rulings, but one day....