Jeremy Rosen
Making Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today? Leviticus 23, Festivals
Summary
Study the text of the Bible weekly with Jeremy Rosen through a combination of traditional, critical, and personal perspectives. No knowledge of Hebrew or the Bible is necessary. You may use any Bible text you may have or you can go to sefaria.org. This week will begin with Leviticus 23, festivals.
Jeremy Rosen
Manchester-born Jeremy Rosen was educated at Cambridge University England and Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He has practiced as an orthodox rabbi, as principal of Carmel College in the UK, and as professor at the Faculty for Comparative Religion in Antwerp, Belgium. He has written and lectured extensively in the UK and the US, where he now resides and was the rabbi of the Persian-Jewish community in Manhattan.
Yes, you could eat matzoh any time of the year. It’s just that on Pesach as a tradition to have a particular strict kind of matzoh which has no additives, no salt, nothing added to it, just pure basic flour. If it says you’d eat matzoh six or seven days, what’s the reason the rabbinical authorities seemed to have decide we only required matzoh the first night, the day. This is a part of typical Talmudic debate as to what do we mean when we are told to eat matzoh? Does it mean all the time? Does it mean only once? Is there a minimum? Is there a maximum? This is a whole casuistic debate in the Torah, in the Gemera which goes on for pages and pages.