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Let’s pull up a chair and delve into one of those moments – a complicated one, to be sure, involving Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar. The question before us is this: Why did Sarah, barre...
Philo, a Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, writing way back in the first century CE, thought so. He saw these narratives as having layers of meaning, a literal interpretation and...
They're not just labels, you know. In Jewish tradition, a name can be a destiny, a reflection of character, a clue to understanding the deeper story. Take Sarah, for example. Why i...
This particular piece tackles the tricky subject of a virtuous man taking a concubine, even though he already has a wife. How could that possibly be seen as righteous? Well, Philo ...
Our question comes from Genesis 16:4: "When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes." Seems simple enough. Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, becomes pregnan...
The Torah, in its often subtle way, touches upon this very question. Our passage focuses on a seemingly small detail in the story of Sarah and Hagar. You remember the story. Sarah,...
We're turning to the Midrash of Philo, a fascinating collection of interpretations that expands on the stories we find in the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, we're looking at a moment ...
Let's delve into a fascinating interpretation of Sarah's complaint against Abraham in the Midrash of Philo, a window into the complexities of relationships and the pursuit of wisdo...
We all know the story of Abraham, or Avraham as we say in Hebrew, and his wife Sarah, or Sarah. They longed for a child, but time was passing. So Sarah, following the customs of th...