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Take lentils, for example. Humble, unassuming… yet, in Jewish tradition, they're deeply tied to mourning and sorrow. Why lentils? The tradition tells us that when Cain killed Abel,...
Take the tale of Jacob and Esau, for instance. We all know the basic outline: Jacob, aided by his mother Rebecca, deceives his blind father Isaac to steal the blessing meant for hi...
Maybe you drove past a friend's house without stopping, or forgot to say thank you to someone who deserved it. Imagine that feeling, amplified on a biblical scale. The Torah tells ...
That’s kind of the vibe around Jacob's famous vision. We all know the story: Jacob, on the run from his brother Esau, is trekking from Beersheva to Haran. Genesis 28:11 simply says...
That’s the kind of dream Jacob, later known as Israel, had as he fled from his brother Esau. It wasn't just a random jumble of images, but a direct encounter with the divine. The T...
The Torah gives us one of the most powerful and mysterious stories of just such a struggle: Jacob wrestling with the angel. The scene is set. Jacob, alone after sending his family ...
It's one of the most enigmatic scenes in the entire Torah (Genesis 32:24-30), and Jewish tradition has offered some pretty wild interpretations over the centuries. One compelling i...
The story goes that after his less-than-amicable departure from his father-in-law Laban, Jacob found himself at the River Yabbok (Yabbok, a river in the Transjordan, now part of Jo...
We all know the story from Genesis 32:24-30. Jacob, preparing to meet his estranged brother Esau, sends his family and possessions across the Yabbok River (a stream whose name mean...