…biblically: see Deut. 13:13-19, 1 Samuel 15:13-26, Esther 9:10, 9:15-16. [2] The Midrash is critical of Dina: see Midrash Aggadah (Buber) to Gen. 34:1. Midrash Sechel Tov is even critical of her mother Leah for permitting her to go out to Shechem. [3] Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 9:14. [4] Arama, Akeidat Yitzchak, Bereishit, Vayera, Gate 20, s.v. UVeMidrash. [5] Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and…
…Esau’s clothes and takes his blessing from their father Yitzchak, who is now blind. In between these two stories is a narrative about Yitzchak and Rebecca going to Gerar because of famine, very similar to the story told about Avraham and Sarah in chapter 20 of Genesis (Parshat Vayera). The Core Idea In Genesis 21 we read about an argument…
I have written about the binding of Isaac many times in these studies, each time proposing an interpretation somewhat different from the ones given by the classic commentators. I do so for a simple reason. The Torah, and Tanach generally, regard child sacrifice as one of the worst of evils. Child sacrifice was widely practised in the ancient world. In…
For each of us there are milestones on our spiritual journey that change the direction of our life and set us on a new path. For me one such moment came when I was a rabbinical student at Jews’ College and thus had the privilege of studying with one of the great rabbinic scholars of our time, Rabbi Dr. Nachum…
The stories told in Bereishit chapters 21 and 22 – the sending away of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac – are among the hardest to understand in the whole of Tanach. Both involve actions that strike us as almost unbearably harsh. But the difficulties they present go deeper even than that. Recall that Abraham was chosen “so that he…
There is one image that haunts us across the millennia, fraught with emotion. It is the image of a man and his son walking side-by-side across a lonely landscape of shaded valleys and barren hills. The son has no idea where he is going and why. The man, in pointed contrast, is a maelstrom of emotion. He knows exactly where…
The Torah does not have a word for ambivalence (the nearest is Elijah’s question to the Baal-worshipping Israelites: “How long will you waver between two opinions?”). It does, however, have a tune for it. This is the rare note known as the shalshelet. It appears three times in Bereishit, each time at a moment of crisis for the individual concerned….
…if you’re chosen. But what about all the people there who aren’t chosen, right? Listen. Let me ask you a very simple question. We’ll do this very quickly. Here is a scene. Sarah has asked Abraham to send Hagar away. Abraham gets terribly upset because Hagar has given birth to his child called Ishmael. Vayera hadavar me’od be’aynei Avraham al…
“God appeared to Abraham in Elonei Mamrei, as he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day.” The eighteenth chapter of Bereishit is structurally difficult to understand. It can be divided into three parts: 1. God appears to Abraham as he is sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the…
It is one of the most famous scenes in the Bible. Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day when three strangers pass by. He urges them to rest and take some food. The text calls them men. They are in fact angels, coming to tell Sarah that she will have a child….