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We often read the Torah focusing on the big picture, but sometimes, it's in the details that we find the most fascinating human drama. Take the story of Jacob's death and burial in...
The Book of Proverbs nails it: "Expectation deferred sickens the heart" (Proverbs 13:12). But what does that really mean, especially when we're talking about something bigger than ...
Take the mitzvah, the commandment, of shiluach haken, sending away the mother bird before taking her eggs or young. It appears in Deuteronomy 22:6-7, and it's all about compassion,...
Take reading from the Torah, for example. The verse we're looking at is from Deuteronomy 29:2: "Moses summoned all Israel, and he said to them: You have seen everything that the Lo...
In fact, the Midrash, specifically Kohelet Rabbah, connects them to something much deeper: the consequences of our actions and, specifically, our words. Kohelet Rabbah, in its insi...
The passage centers on a verse describing a certain kind of woman – a figure that becomes a symbol for temptation itself: "Whose [heart] is snares and nets." (Ecclesiastes 7:26). W...
That idea is right at the heart of a beautiful passage from Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Ecclesiastes. The verse in question is Ecclesias...
Our story begins in ancient Egypt, where the Israelites are flourishing, a little too flourishing for the liking of the Pharaoh. He sees their growing numbers as a threat, and so, ...
The scene: Pharaoh, terrified by the growing Israelite population, issues a horrifying command to the Hebrew midwives. "When you deliver the Hebrew women," he says, "and you see th...
