His Heart Yearned For His Brother Last time, we saw that together with Benjamin the brothers had returned to Egypt. They were apprehensive of being accused of stealing the silver they had found in their sacks; they didn’t know whether they would find Simeon alive and whether he would be returned to them; and most […]
They “trembled to one another” Last time, we were watching the brothers during their first meeting with Joseph. We saw that right away they felt the connection between this meeting and the crime that they had been hiding all these years. Somehow, they knew it was all about their long-ago sold brother, however, they still […]
The Long-Awaited Meeting We continue our journey through this gripping and passionate Bible story: the story of Joseph and his brothers. The day has finally come, the long-awaited moment has arrived when Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt and stand before him – the ten brothers who had nearly murdered him but took enough pity […]
Two Years of Days The next section of Joseph’s saga begins at the end of two full years – when Pharaoh dreamed. However, there is a slight difference when read in Hebrew: Miketz Shnataim Yamim (מִקֵּץ שְׁנָתַיִם יָמִים ) – at the end of “two years of days”. The word yamim, days, doesn’t occur in […]
His Master Saw… We are back to Joseph’s saga. “The Lord was with Joseph” – these words are the key to the developing drama that now takes up the thread dropped for a while because of the Judah and Tamar interlude. God’s presence is constantly in the background, both when Joseph is in trouble and […]
The Opening of the Eyes We are still in Genesis 38, in this strange and unexpected interruption to the narrative, in the story of Judah and Tamar. We are entering the most interesting part of the story, the “action” of the story, which according to the text happens “a long time afterward”—a long time after […]
The Burden of Leadership We would be back to the story of Joseph now if the Torah itself had not interrupted it! But in Genesis 38, right after the sale of Joseph by his brothers in Genesis 37, we read the unexpected story of Judah and Tamar. This story, in fact, breaks the flow of […]
As I’ve been preparing my post on Shavuot, the situation in Israel has been becoming graver and graver by the hour. Therefore, instead of a regular Shavuot article, I was led to publish here today an excerpt from my book about Isaac and Ishmael, “Abraham had two sons”. “There is a famous saying: “Pray […]
The Dreams We are still at the very beginning of Genesis 37, that fateful chapter where Joseph’s story begins. I promised to show you how God’s plan unfolds – and the very first thing you would notice if you read these verses in Hebrew, is how many times the word “hate” occurs here. Joseph’s older […]
What Did Joseph Wear? Last time, we stopped on verse 3 of Genesis 37: Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, and he made him very special clothes. In Hebrew, this coat, or tunic, is calledכְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים (ketonet passim). The traditional idea rendered by most translations is that this was some sort of multi-colored outer […]
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