SAN DIEGO — This week’s Parshah, Sefaria, is packed with instructions for many different things. In the first part, Moses repeats all the good things that will happen to those who follow God’s laws and what will happen to those who listen to strangers and follow their ways.
But there are many new rules mentioned in this section as well. There is a lengthy description of the Kosher laws, what meat can be eaten and what should be avoided. Two specific rules are given: any animal that has a split hoof and chews its cud (swallows its food, then regurgitates it back into its mouth to chew and swallow it again) is okay to eat.
That includes oxen, sheep, goats, deer and a host of others. Animals with a hoof that isn’t split, such as a camel or rabbit, are not kosher. Neither is a pig, because it doesn’t chew its cud. A fish must have fins and scales to be eaten and birds must not be scavengers.
Moses goes on to describe how to help those in need. Every third year, part of a farms harvest is to be left in the field for the poor, so that “the Lord your God may bless you in all” you do. If there is a “needy person among you…open your hand and lend him” enough “for whatever he needs…and…God will bless. You in all your efforts and in all your undertakings.”
The last part of this Parshah describes in detail the three festivals the people will be required to go to the Temple to celebrate: Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. Moses instructs the people to eat only unleavened bread for seven days on Passover, to remember the day their ancestors left Egypt. They are told to then count seven weeks and celebrate the Feast of Booths, or Shavuot. The last festival, Sukkot is in the fall so God can bless their crops.
What you can do: Keep your heart open and if you see someone who needs help, work with your parents to find a way to help them.
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Marcia Berneger is a retired elementary school teacher as well as a teacher at Torah school. She is the author of such children’s books as Buster the Little Garbage Truck, and A Dreidel in Time.