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Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, tackles this very question, and it turns out, it's a battle as old as time. The text starts with a...
It turns out, our tradition has some fascinating ideas about this, rooted in the stories of Noah and the Flood. We find in Genesis 9:1, immediately after the Flood, that “God bless...
Take, for example, the sons of Ḥam (חָם), Noah's son: "Kush, and Mitzrayim, and Put, and Canaan" (Genesis 10:6). We see the names that echo through history – Mitzrayim, which is Eg...
It's like a chameleon, shifting its color to match the background. Take the Hebrew word hu, meaning "he is" or "he was." It seems simple enough. But in Bereshit Rabbah, a collectio...
Today, let's dive into a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah 37, a rabbinic commentary on the Book of Genesis, that explores just that. We're going to look at the story of the...
We all know the basic narrative: humanity, united by a single language, decided to build a tower reaching to the heavens. God, displeased with their ambition, confused their langua...
The story of Abraham begins with just such a call. Genesis 12:1—a verse etched into the heart of Jewish tradition—tells us: "The Lord said to Abram: Go you, from your land, and fro...
Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 39. Rabbi Azarya, quoting Rabbi Aḥa, starts with a verse from Psalms (45:8): "You love righteousness and abhor wickedness. Because of this, God, your ...
We're talking about the famous verse in Genesis 12:1, the very beginning of Abraham's journey: "Go you [lekh lekha] from your country, your people and your father’s household to th...
