As we already know, Sukkot is “the season of our joy” – and the joy of Sukkot reaches its peak during its final day – Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah (lit.: The Joy of Torah) is a holiday that marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah reading, and the beginning of a new cycle. The […]
Today we are going to speak about the Torah reading for Shabbat that falls on intermediate days of Sukkot: Exodus 33:12-34:26. Before we do that, however, I would like to clarify some terms connected to the Festival: what does “intermediate days of Sukkot” mean? In Leviticus 23, we read about Moadei Adonai – the […]
ZMAN SIMCHATEINU Sukkot starts almost immediately after the solemn and sober Days of Awe—the days of trembling and repentance. We finish the fast of Yom Kippur, and on the same night, we start building sukkot – tabernacles. Years ago, I lived in a house with a large common yard and I loved watching my religious […]
TWO GOATS In Leviticus 16, we find a detailed description of the Day of Atonement liturgy at the Tabernacle and Temple: a sin offering involving two goats. They were chosen to be as similar as possible to one another; they were then brought before the High Priest and lots were drawn, one bearing the words “To […]
“Hidden Savior” Pattern This article concludes our analysis of 11QMelchizedek. As we have seen in our previous posts, this whole text presents an eschatological scenario of the coming judgment. In this sense, we have all the necessary components here: coming end and judgment, on the one hand, and salvation of the righteous ones, on the […]
Melchizedek as a Transcendental Savior We continue our discussion of one of the oldest and most astonishing documents discovered at Qumran, the fragment called 11QMelchizedek. In our last article, we saw that the very selection of the biblical texts in 11QMelchizedek bore witness to a messianic reading of this text. Melchizedek of 11QMelch can certainly […]
The Mysterious Figure People often wonder who Melchizedek was. Some believe he was Noah’s son Shem reincarnated; others that he was an angel; early church fathers taught that he was the pre-incarnation of Jesus, and many Christians today still think so. Let us try to sort these things out. As always, I am not claiming to possess a […]
What most people don’t realize The story that we are dealing with – the story of the “stolen blessing” – as with every other narrative, can be looked at from the different perspectives. We can try to see it through Jacob’s eyes, Isaac’s eyes or Esau’s eyes – and maybe, at some point we will: […]
The Disturbing Story A dear friend of mine used to often say (quoting her Rabbi’s words): always look for the “Menorah pattern”. I recalled these words when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to squeeze the whole story of Genesis 27 into one post as I had hoped. That means we will have to […]
The Question In the last post, we spoke about the phrase: שְׁנֵי גֹיִים בְּבִטְנֵךְ – Two nations are in your womb – from the prophecy that Lord gave to Rebecca when she was still pregnant. I mentioned that this phrase has been used repeatedly in our history to define the relationship of the people of Israel to […]
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