Posts by Julia Blum

My dear readers, since I’ve received a number of  questions regarding the Last Supper, I’ve decided, once again, to address the issue on these pages. The precise nature of the last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples, as well as the day and the date of His crucifixion, have been among the most debated […]

Shalom and Chag Sameach, dear friends! I am publishing this post on Wednesday  (April 8)  just a few hours before Passover – the most unusual Passover in our lives. Due to  coronavirus lockdown,  not only  this year we will not celebrate  with relatives and friends ,  – we can’t actually leave our homes till  Thursday, […]

 My dear readers, this blog  had never been meant to be a reaction to the events around us – and in all these years I’ve done my best to stick with biblical studies only, and not comment on events which, at one point or another, were filling the media (and trust me, that’s not an […]

Second Passover? Trying times are upon us, my dear readers – and, like everyone else, I am seeking the answers. The words that ring in my mind these days, are the words from Numbers 16: “And the plague was stopped”- and even though I know very well the Hebrew word, עָצַר atsar (“stopped”), that is […]

TL;DR: Genesis 3 is examined as one of the most crucial chapters in the Bible, with the author also noting striking parallels between the Torah portion Ki Tissa and modern events like plague outbreaks and handwashing. We are back to our Beginnings series. We are entering  Genesis 3 today – one of the most crucial […]

The Mystery I know we are in the middle of our BEGINNINGS series, and I really hope that my readers are eager to read  the next post from this series – but as I have already paused for the Purim article, I will take liberty to continue this pause and post a commentary on the […]

The Narrative We will pause our Beginning series this week, because Purim is approaching and we will talk about book of Esther today. Yes, there is a wonderful narrative here   that we all love to read and to hear – but there is so much more to this book! I believe that Esther is one […]

  My dear readers, I thought we were ready to move on to the third chapter of Genesis – but I’ve realized that there are still many amazing nuances to be gleaned from chapter two that we haven’t discussed yet. Therefore, we will continue today in this incredible chapter (hopefully moving to chapter three next week).  […]

And He called From our discussion of Genesis 1, we know that God’s word was the central part of the whole creative process – and the verb VaYikra (and He called) reflects that. God gave names to what He created, and by doing that He called them into existence. God called the light Day, and […]

The Literary Bridge  As we saw last time, Genesis 2:4 is the opening verse of the second account of Creation: it begins the second “story of heaven and earth when God created earth and heaven”. This verse is very interesting for several reasons: first of all, it occurs several times in the Torah, opening some […]