Ancient Connection – Modern Pioneers
This week is the first of the four special Torah readings that lead up to Pesach. They are all connected in one way or another to the ideal reality, when the Jewish people are living as a nation in their land and the Beit HaMikdash is functioning properly. For example, this week’s extra portion describes […]
This week the world experienced a devastating and frightening earthquake. As believing Jews, we should “live with the parsha of the week” meaning that we should look into the weekly Torah reading for insights into current events. One small angle that emerges from such an analysis leads us from the devastation of the earthquake to […]
One of the highlights of our parsha is the splitting of the sea. Generally, we think of this miracle as an act of divine kindness or perhaps as a reward for the Jewish people’s great faith in following God into the wilderness. Interestingly, though, in the midrash we find the following opinion: Rebbi Yishmael […]
In our parsha the Jewish people finally leave Egypt and march towards freedom. This momentous occasion is commemorated every year in the Pesach seder when we act in ways befitting free people. One would think that the moment the Jewish people left the borders of mitzrayim they would be defined as “free-people”. Interestingly, though, we […]
During the plague of Arov, the Torah records a negotiation of sorts between Pharoah andMoshe. Pharoah tells Moshe that if his goal is that the Jewish people should have an opportunity toserve God and offer him sacrifices, there is no reason for that not to occur within the borders of theLand of Egypt. Moshe, though, […]
In our parsha we read about the horrible oppression of the Jewish people in Egypt. The Torah describes that the Egyptians worked them to the point of exhaustion and murdered them. One would assume that the focus of this era in Jewish history is the physical labor, the oppression and the threat to their physical […]
In our parsha, Yaakov blesses his son Yehuda through a comparison to a lion: “A cub [and] a grown lion is Yehuda. From the prey, my son, you withdrew. He crouched, rested like a lion (kara ravatz k’aryeh).” Interestingly, Bilam employs similar imagery when describing the Jewish people: “He crouches and lies like a lion […]
This week’s parsha features the titanic struggle between the two kings of the Jewish people – Yosef and Yehuda. The midrash associates this confrontation with the following verses in Tehillim: For behold, the kings have assembled; they have passed together. They saw, so they wondered; they were startled, yea, they were bewildered. A quaking seized […]
One of the key take aways from Chanukah was the centrality that the Temple and Jerusalem played in triggering the Hashmonaim led rebellion against Greek rule. After all the Greeks and their Jewish Hellenist partners defiled the Temple and took control of the Jerusalem. Defeating Israel’s enemies meant that real sovereignty was restored. Not much […]
The Torah has an interesting description of Yaakov’s initial encounter with the city of Shechem: “And Yaakov came complete (shalem) to the city of Shechem.” As the midrash notes, the word “shalem” in the context of a city usually refers to Yerushalayim. Accordingly, this could have implied a close association between the city of Shechem […]
