The Jewish Studies Blog

Saved From The Wicked Generation …

Saved From The Wicked Generation …

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 […]

Lost In Translation: Beresheet

Lost In Translation: Beresheet

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 […]

Sukkot In The New Testament

Sukkot In The New Testament

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 Joy Of Renewed Fellowship

The Joy Of Renewed Fellowship

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 […]

Pardes, Two Sons Of Abraham And Yom Kippur

Pardes, Two Sons Of Abraham And Yom Kippur

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 […]

Rosh Hashanah Torah Reading: God Wants To Heal!

Rosh Hashanah Torah Reading: God Wants To Heal!

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 […]

Day Of Blowing The Shofar

Day Of Blowing The Shofar

Two New Years Shalom and Chag Sameach, dear friends! The High Holy Days are almost here; in Israel, we are entering a season called Chagim: Feasts, or Holidays, and as always, we will pause our current series in order to look at these special days. We  will continue our discussion of the book of Acts […]

From Jerusalem To Rome: The Hidden Messiah

From Jerusalem To Rome: The Hidden Messiah

By now, we know what Peter revealed: the great mystery of the Gospel, the secret things that Father has hidden …from the wise and prudent and revealed to babes, is the messiahship of Jesus. In Luke’s Gospel, this secret is hidden and concealed from Israel; in Acts, Peter is sharing this secret with all the […]

What Did Peter Reveal?

What Did Peter Reveal?

My dear readers, you all know by now that Pentecost and Shavuot are two different names for the same Festival.  Last time, we spoke about Revelation being the main theme of Shavuot in Jewish tradition. That means that some hidden things were revealed on that Pentecost/Shavuot day in Jerusalem that Acts 2 tells us about: […]

From Jerusalem To Rome: The Revelation

From Jerusalem To Rome: The Revelation

When the Day of Pentecost had come “The voice went out and was divided into seven voices and from seven voices into seventy tongues, so that all the nations will hear. And every nation heard the voice in its own tongue and was amazed.”  Sounds familiar doesn’t it? And yet, it is not a beginning of […]

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