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We often think of tzedakah, usually translated as charity, as giving money to the poor. But what if it's something far more profound? The Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Boo...
Our starting point? A little phrase from Sifrei Devarim 355: "He shall be desired of his brothers." Sounds intriguing. The text presents us with two distinct interpretations of thi...
A scribe’s nightmare? Perhaps. A treasure trove of textual insights? Absolutely! According to Sifrei Devarim 356, that's exactly what happened. And the differences weren't major pl...
They tell us of Moses' death. But… wait a minute. How could Moses himself have written about his own demise? It's a question that's puzzled Jewish scholars for centuries. The Sifre...
The verse says that Moses, "the servant of the L-rd," died "by the word of the L-rd" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Seems simple enough. But the ancient rabbis saw layers of meaning here. The...
It’s something the Sages of the Talmud were keenly aware of, and it pops up in the most unexpected places. Take the very end of Moses’ life. "And Moses was one hundred and twenty y...
One that echoes through generations, forcing us to confront our own anxieties and shortcomings. But it's not all doom and gloom. Ben Sira, also known as Yeshua ben Sirach, offers a...
It’s easy to get caught up in the now, in what’s shiny and new. But what about the wisdom that comes from years of living, years of observing, years of learning? Ben Sira, that sag...
Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus, is a book of wisdom literature from around the 2nd century BCE – a time of huge cultural shifts and anxieties. It’s not part of the Hebrew B...
