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Jewish tradition is just teeming with those kinds of moments. Take Jacob, for instance, as he's about to head down to Egypt to reunite with his son Joseph. The Torah tells us, "Isr...
It centers around the verse: "He slaughtered feast-offerings to the God of his father Isaac" (Genesis 46:1). Why Isaac? Why not Abraham, the patriarch of them all? Rabbi Yehoshua b...
It all begins with Jacob, now also known as Israel, standing at a crossroads. God speaks to him "in the visions of the night," a phrase that already sets a mystical tone. "Jacob, J...
I was reading in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis, and I stumbled across just such a moment. It revolves around a rather pointed exc...
Turns out, sometimes, there's a whole universe of emotion and history packed into those few words. Take, for example, the passage in Genesis 46:21: "And the sons of Benjamin: Bela,...
The verses state, "All the people who were coming with Jacob to Egypt, the products of his loins, aside from the wives of Jacob's sons; all the people were sixty-six" (Genesis 46:2...
And they found hints of it in the most unexpected places – like the story of Jacob sending Judah ahead to Joseph in Goshen (Genesis 46:28). The verse says, "He sent Judah before hi...
The verse in Isaiah (11:13) says, "The jealousy of Ephraim will cease." Now, Bereshit Rabbah, that incredible collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, sees a connection h...
It's even woven into the very fabric of the Torah. : we read in Genesis 47:28, "Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were one...