Exodus 6:2–9:35 Not long ago my niece Shira sent me some comments on the weekly portion in which Moses was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. She compared the historical events with the life stories of her two grandmothers, who had died at the end of a long, full life after first experiencing a childhood of terror…
Miketz — At the End of Two Years Genesis 41:1–44:17 Because We Were Strangers Joseph is the archetype of the Diaspora Jewish success story. He is the first ever to make it big in the royal court. He is the first to understand what it means to live outside Israel, initially under duress but later…
In a speech aimed at liberal Jewish voters, President Obama sought to rebut Republican claims that he was soft in his support for Israel and praised Reform Judaism’s support for civil rights and social justice in his address at the biennial meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism. The crowd of 6,000, in turn, enthusiastically…
Vayeshev “Vayered Yehuda,” our story begins – literally, Yehuda descended. This is an emotional statement as well as a topographical one. Tamar’s story begins just as we conclude the story of Yehuda proposing that his brothers sell their younger brother Joseph. In both stories, Yehuda acts in an immoral way. The story begins by telling…
Genesis 37:1–40:23 Jacob and His Two Firstborns, Judah and Joseph There is something reassuringly stable and secure in the notion of “dwelling,” the verb that gives this week’s portion its name. It has an air of permanence, of rootedness, unlike more tentative concepts such as sojourning or abiding. The same is true of the Hebrew…
Genesis 32:4–36:42 Jacob and What Isn’t Accomplished by Force As we’ve noted, more than half the weekly portions in the Book of Genesis deal with Jacob, his personal history and his difficult family. It’s no surprise, then, that his character and profile are depicted in much finer detail in the Torah than any of his…
Toledot Genesis 25:19–28:9 Do you remember when Ross Perot, in a debate against Al Gore back in the early 1990s, got flustered by something Gore said, maybe about NAFTA or Perot’s computer company, and at a certain point he started yelling out, “Now you’re lying!” “He’s lying!” Nobody could tell who was right at that…
Genesis 25:19–28:9 Jacob: A Simple Man? The fact is that our father Jacob was a liar in his youth. It’s also true that by the end of the story, he is the most upright patriarch of them all. As opposed to Abraham and Isaac, he never told anyone that his wife was his sister. He…
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