Sabbath of Naso

Yossi Feintuch: Naftali – the national unifier

מאת

The tribe of Naftali was singled out, among the tribes of Israel who were counted for battle in the Wilderness of Sinai, in a foremost subtle way, yet significant. While all tribes are referenced as ‘’For the sons of… [name of tribe], only the tribe that concludes the list (Numbers 1:32)

Yossi Feintuch: On being first and last

מאת

This weekly Torah portion, Naso, is the longest among the 54 that comprise the cyclical yearly public readings. The reason for that extraordinary length of 176 verses is the successive repetition in the verbatim of five verses at the end of the portion readout tediously even twelve times, like a broken record.