Over the past few years, as technology, the corporate mindset, and social media have struck blow after blow against notions of modesty and privacy, along with courtesy and a sense of shame, we have seen a new kind of ‘apology’ rear its ugly head. ‘Well, if anyone was offended by what I said, or did, you must know I didn’t mean it that way, and it’s not what I said, but I’m sorry if people understood it that way, and I apologize if anyone was hurt by it, though I don’t see why they should be.”

In this week’s parsha, Pekudei, we complete the book of Exodus. We also complete the construction of the Mishkan, the portable Tabernacle used by the Israelites in the desert. As the long description of its planning and construction, which has taken up a few parshas, comes to a close, we are told of the project’s success: “And the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of God filled the tent (Exodus, 40, 34).” Success! A temple had been built for God, and He has chosen to dwell in it.

In Parshat Vayakhel, we see once again the juxtaposition of the commandment to build the Tabernacle and to also keep the Sabbath. The Rabbis understood the connection between these two commandments in a number of ways. Perhaps most crucially, they see the work done to build the Tabernacle as being the very definition of work which is prohibited on Shabbat – whatever it takes to build the Mishkan is exactly what you may not do on Shabbat.

This week, in Parshat Terumah, we begin the long section of the Torah which discusses the building of the Mishkan, the portable temple which the Israelites used in the desert, prior to arriving in the Land of Israel and the construction of the actual temple in Jerusalem.

One of the things that have always bothered me about the plague of the smiting of the first born is the fact that all first born sons were killed by God. One could understand this horrible punishment being meted out to the aristocracy, the ruling classes, the landed gentry; after all, they were people who had enslaved and oppressed, for their own personal gain, the Jewish nation. But why did God kill “the first born of the maidservant” and the “first born in prison”?

Why are Zionists Zionists? Why is having our own state in the Land of Israel a good idea, and what is its purpose?

There are two basic answers to this question. The first is practical: people need somewhere to live, a place of their own. The long, hard history of the Jewish people amply and dramatically demonstrates what can go wrong when a nation lives in a state of statelessness. Their own place in the sun, which serves as a home, a refuge, a place from which one can, if need be, defend oneself, is a sine qua non for survival.

Right now, the internet in its various formats – from Facebook to twitter and beyond – as well as more traditional media, such as the New York Times, are full of discussions about the sad case of a Rabbi who has, by his own admission, committed a number of awful sexual crimes and misdemeanors. There is very little doubt about the facts, which certainly should be enough to guarantee that this dangerous and manipulative person will never teach, lecture to, or counsel anyone ever again.

The parsha of Vayechi is unique in that it follows the previous parsha, Vayigash, with no physical break on the page of the Torah. All the other portions of the Torah have a kind of page break, like a new paragraph, between them. Vayechi is the only one that picks up immediately after the parsha before it, with the last word of Vayigash followed immediately, with no physical gap at all, by the first word of Vayechi.

There is a very basic problem at a crucial juncture in parshat Vayigash. Yaakov now knows that his beloved son Yosef is alive, and, of course, wants to see him. However, instead of doing the right thing and asking Yosef to come and see him at home, in Canaan, or, alternatively, going down to Egypt to visit him – Yosef is, after all, a very busy man – he packs up the entire Jewish people, abandons the homeland promised to his fathers and him by God, and moves to Egypt, apparently for an indeterminate amount of time.  How could Yaakov do such a thing?

The Parsha of Miketz is almost always read on the Shabbat of Hanukkah. One of the obvious connections between this parsha and the holiday, albeit a complicated one, is the theme of Jews living in a non-Jewish culture. Miketz is all about how Yosef managed to live in the land of Egypt and, in fact, master the country and its culture, becoming, by the age of thirty, Pharaoh’s right-hand-man, and actually running the state. This successful assimilation into Egypt is underscored by what seems to be Yosef’s ultimate goal, once his brothers come from Canaan and he meets them.