The joy of Sukkot reaches its peak during Simchat Torah, the holiday that follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah reading, and the beginning of a new cycle. Last year, we spoke about the first Torah portion, Bereishit (In the Beginning), but the cycle begins […]
Sukkot is a weeklong celebration, therefore it offers a wonderful opportunity to discuss different aspects of this amazing prophetic Feast. Today, we are going to talk about that Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus came to celebrate in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago, and to learn a few new things about Sukkot along the way. USHPIZIN […]
THE JOY OF RENEWED FELLOWSHIP As my readers probably know, the number 7 has always been regarded by the interpreters and commentators of the Torah, as the number of completeness. Therefore, the seventh month of the year, Tishrei, is indeed a very important month in God’s sacred calendar. It is full of the special […]
TWO GOATS We are approaching the most holy day in the Biblical calendar – Yom Kippur. The solemn ritual of this day in Biblical times is described in Leviticus 16, and as Charles Feinberg wrote, “…no more significant truths could possibly engage the mind of the believer than those set forth in this chapter of […]
ISHMAEL In previous years, when the High Holy Days arrived, I would stop the series I was writing, in order to publish posts about the holidays. This year will be different, with my “Isaac and Ishmael” series: I can’t imagine a more fitting season to write about Isaac and Ishmael than during Rosh Hashanah (רֹאשׁ […]
Sarah’s Plan Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar.[1] From this opening sentence, one can already guess that since Hagar first appears within the context of Sarah’s barrenness, the girl will have something to do with childbearing. We don’t know anything about Hagar’s […]
A painful decision We continue with our dramatic story and move on to Sarah’s[1] part now. Remarkably, the first thing we learn about Sarah is the fact of her barrenness (repeated twice): But Sarai was barren; she had no child.[2] This short note occurs even before Abraham is told to go out of Haran, and […]
A “Perfect” Solution Last time, we saw Abraham receiving the wonderful promise of God in Genesis 15. Thus, by chapter 16, where the story of Hagar and Ishmael begins, we already know two main things about Abraham: his faith in God, and his desire to have a child. Not only do these two things define […]
AN AMAZING JOURNEY A few years ago, I started writing a book on Isaac and Ishmael—started reluctantly, responding to someone’s request, not altogether convinced that I was the right person to do it. There are so many people, I thought, who would be much more qualified to write about Ishmael and the Arab people. […]
We are back to our discussion of the Book of Enoch and of the amazing parallels between this book and the Gospels. We have seen already that “when we use Enoch as a context for the New Testament, many early Christian ideas come into a much clearer focus, and many of the gaps in the […]
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