The biblical priestly text is unique in the ancient Near East, in that it utilizes scribal features such as colophons, cross references, and casuistic laws (when... then...), aimed at making the text accessible to the public. This preserved Israelite priestly writing past the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

The deepest desire of worshipers was to have YHWH in their midst.

Impurity is transferred through physical contact. Theologically speaking, could the same be true for holiness?

Biblical tradition often depicts difficult father and son relationships. Accordingly, the concluding verses of Malachi—the final book of the Prophets—imagines ultimate redemption through a metaphor of father-son reconciliation, in which the fire and brimstone prophet Elijah is its unlikely harbinger. Leave it to the poet Yehuda Amichai to step in and offer a counter-model to rescue the metaphor.

Expanding upon R. David Zvi Hoffmann’s insight that Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6-7) was originally connected directly with the laws of the ordination/miluim sacrifice in Exodus 29, with a second sacrificial unit (Leviticus 1-5) spliced in the middle.

When Torah verses appear to contradict Jewish law.