“And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham begot Isaac” (VaEile toledot Izhak) – this is the beginning of the new Torah Portion, Toledot. These very words, VaEile toledot, occur eleven times in the book of Genesis, serving as a heading for its major divisions and “making descent a keystone of biblical history”[1]. […]
My dear readers, we continue our “lost in translation” journey through the Torah Portions. At some point, we will definitely go back to the Book of Acts and continue the discussion that we started before the High Holidays, but for now, we will follow the Torah Portions cycle. Every year when a new cycle begins […]
I wrote already on these pages that Torah Portion VaYerah presented a special interest to Christians: its structure is similar to the structure of the gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke. This portion begins with the Divine Annunciation of the miraculous birth of the son of the promise, and ends with Aqedat Itzhak, the […]
Lech Lecha is one of the most amazing portions in the whole Torah, and it’s definitely one of my favorites. One can speak endlessly about these chapters, in fact, I wrote an entire book on them[1], but since this year’s comments on Parashot Shavua go under the title “Lost in translation” that’s what we will […]
The second Torah Portion of the year is Noah. We all know the story of Noah. This is one of the first stories from the Bible that parents tell their kids. However, the most overlooked parts of the Torah are those which are most familiar. We think we know them too well, and therefore we do […]
In Israel, we just celebrated Simchat Torah (lit. Joy of the Torah) – the joyful holiday that marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah reading and the beginning of a new cycle. Yes, my dear friends, the year has flown by and we are in Beresheet again! I know we were reading the book […]
How did the Jews celebrate Sukkot in the time of Jesus? Today, we are going to talk about that Feast of Tabernacles that Jesus came to celebrate in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago. We will learn a few new things about Sukkot along the way. The Water and the Light In John 7, we […]
The Feast As my readers probably know, the number “seven” has always been regarded by interpreters and commentators of the Torah as the number of completeness. It comes as no surprise then, that the seventh month of the year, Tishrei, is indeed a very important month in God’s sacred calendar. It is full of the […]
In my last post, I promised to show you in the Scriptures the reconciliation of Abraham’s two sons. I suppose you know as well as I do that there is no scene in the Torah describing explicitly the reconciliation of Isaac and Ishmael (unlike the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau, for instance, or Joseph and […]
Entering the Mystery Last time, I promised to talk about the special Rosh Hashanah Torah reading. But before we do that, I would like to say just a few words about the Torah Portion that precedes the Rosh Hashanah reading. We read this portion last Shabbat, and this portion is always read on the Shabbat […]
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