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Our guide? None other than Bereshit Rabbah 93, a treasure trove of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis. Specifically, we're looking at the moment Judah "approached" (va...
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,...
Take the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. In Genesis 47:2, we read, "From among his brothers he took five men, and he presented them before Pharaoh." Okay, seems simple e...
It seems like a strange thing to worry about when, well, we're no longer around to worry about anything. But the story of Jacob, as he nears the end of his life in Egypt, gives us ...
Our Sages, delving deep into the Torah, grapple with this very idea in Bereshit Rabbah 97, a section of the ancient Midrash. They begin with a verse from Genesis (48:16), where Jac...
It’s a beautiful custom, wishing them the qualities we admire in these two brothers. But there's something even more interesting hidden within that blessing, something that goes ba...
The verse in Genesis 49:2 reads, "Assemble and hear, sons of Jacob." But the Rabbis of old, wrestling with the text, saw something more. Rabbi Berekhya, sometimes quoting Rabbi Ḥiy...
It's a wild ride of interpretations, isn’t it? The passage opens with Jacob's words: "Reuben, you are my firstborn." Now, Rabbi [Yehuda HaNasi], the compiler of the Mishnah, offers...
The Torah gives us stories of such people again and again, and one of the most striking is Samson. Our text from Bereshit Rabbah (98) delves into the strength – and the thirst! – o...
