and each year I find myself returning to it with a slightly different perspective.
I remember being puzzled by the narrative at the end of the parsha—the unnamed man whose father was an Egyptian and whose mother was an Israelite. It raises questions about identity and what it means to belong. As a thirteen-year-old, I tried to make sense of it the best way I could, and I was drawn to the story of Hillel accepting a convert who asked to be taught the Torah while standing on one foot (Shabbat 31a). Hillel taught: דַּעֲלָךְ סְנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַּעֲבֵיד — זוֹ הִיא כׇּל הַתּוֹרָה כּוּלָּהּ, וְאִידַּךְ פֵּירוּשָׁהּ הוּא, זִיל גְּמוֹר. That which is hateful to you do not do unto another; this is the entirety of the Torah, and the rest is its interpretation—go study.
I did, and still do, find that idea intriguing—the notion that something so vast and complex could be condensed into a single, short teaching.
These days, it also makes me think of the Rambam, for whom our school is named. In the Mishneh Torah, he set out to organize all of Torah into fourteen books—a bold vision of a single, comprehensive guide for Jewish life. And yet, that work didn’t remain on its own; it became part of an ongoing conversation, studied, debated, and expanded by generations that followed.
When I think back on my own years as a student at Maimonides, I sometimes wonder if there was a single idea, or book, or set of teachings that captures that experience.
Earlier this year, a number of our classmates gathered to mark 30 years since graduation. We flipped through yearbooks, looked at old pictures, and caught up. But what stood out more was something harder to point to—an ease in the room, a shared set of references, the kinds of things that don’t really need explaining. Alongside that, of course, were plenty of differences in perspective, and with enough time, I’m sure the conversation would have turned into a spirited debate.
I think I’ve come to appreciate that more over time. The appeal of something you can hold onto—a single idea or book—is real. But most of what actually stays with us doesn’t come packaged that way.
It shows up in small moments: something a teacher said that only made sense years later, a conversation that stuck, a friendship that continues to evolve. It’s the accumulation of those experiences, and the way they begin to shape how we think and how we see the world.
So when I come back to Emor now, I find myself thinking less about whether it’s possible to capture everything “on one foot,” and more about what it would even look like to try—and realizing that the focus is even more on everything else there still is to learn. Zil g’mor!
