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The text opens with God's reassurance to Abraham: "Fear not, Abram." But whom did Abraham fear? Rabbi Berekhya suggests it was none other than Shem himself. The passage then draws ...
Abraham, our patriarch, knew that feeling. In Genesis 15:2, he cries out, "My Lord God, what will You give me, seeing that I go childless, and the one who has charge of my house is...
We often think of them as paragons of faith, figures of unwavering strength. But what about their doubts, their fears about the future? The ancient rabbis, in their beautiful and i...
As we find in Genesis 15:3, Abraham cries out, "Behold, to me You have not given offspring, and a member of my household is my heir." He's pouring out his heart, expressing his dee...
It all starts with God promising Abraham countless descendants: "Look now to the heavens, and count the stars, if you can count them… So will your offspring be." But it's the phras...
We find a fascinating glimpse into that struggle in Bereshit Rabbah 44, a section of the ancient midrashic collection on the Book of Genesis. It all centers around Abraham and a ra...
Jewish tradition certainly sees echoes of the past in the present, especially when it comes to empires. In Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the ...
The Torah uses powerful imagery to describe just such a feeling in Genesis 15:11: “Birds of prey descended upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.” But what does it really m...
"Know with certainty that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved to them and they will oppress them, four hundred years.” That's...
