What Is The Theme Of The Stories Of Genesis?
To be sure, a persistent theme of the patriarchal stories is the two promises G-d made to each of them, namely that they would have many descendants and that they would inherit the land of Canaan.
The Jewish Journey
Jews don’t stand still except when standing before G-d. The universe, from galaxies to subatomic particles, is in constant motion, and so is the Jewish soul.
The Birth Of The World’s Oldest Hate
Pharaoh was a one-time enemy of the Jews, but Lavan exists, in one form or another, in age after age.
The Tragedy of Good Intentions
It is the deep, reverberating question at the heart of Toldot. Why did Rebecca tell Jacob to deceive Isaac and take Esau’s blessing? Her...
Walking Together
There is an image that haunts us across the millennia, fraught with emotion. It is the image of a man and his son walking...
The Power Of Example
All four narratives are about the human condition as such. Their message is universal and eternal, as befits a book about G-d who is universal and eternal.
The Universality Of Sukkot
Not only are the four kinds and the tabernacle different in character; they are even seemingly opposed to one another. The four kinds and the rituals associated with them are about rain.
Leadership: Consensus Or Command?
Moses advises his successor to lead by consultation and consensus. G-d tells Joshua to lead firmly and with authority. Even if people do not agree with you, He counsels him, you must lead from the front. Be clear. Be decisive. Be forceful. Be strong.
Freedom Means Telling The Story
Covenant societies exist not because they have been there a long time, nor because of some act of conquest, nor for the sake of some economic or military advantage. They exist to honor a pledge, a moral bond, an ethical undertaking.
Two Types Of Hate
When love is conditional, it lasts as long as the condition lasts but no longer.
Power From The Outside Or Self-Restraint From Within
Why do crowds riot? The short answer is, because they can.
Making Poverty History
Charity is always voluntary. Tzedakah is compulsory. Therefore, tzedakah does not mean charity. The nearest English equivalent is social justice.
Why Civilizations Fail
What Moses was saying to the new generation was this: You thought that the forty years of wandering in the wilderness were the real challenge, and that once you conquer and settle the land, your problems will be over.
The Idea That Changed The World
To this day American politics is based on the biblical idea of covenant. American presidents almost always invoke this idea in their Inaugural Addresses in language that owes its cadences and concepts to the book of Devarim.
The Book Of The Covenant
What is unique about the covenant in Judaism is, first, that one of the parties is G-d Himself. This would have been unintelligible to Israel’s neighbors, and remains extraordinary even today.
Natural Or Supernatural?
According to Maimonides, the death of the High Priest has nothing to do with guilt or atonement, but simply with the fact that it causes a collective grief so great that it causes people to forget their own misfortunes in the face of a larger national loss.
Pacing Change
A leader who fails to work for change is not a leader. But a leader who attempts too much change in too short a time will fail.
A People That Dwells Alone?
These are important fights, good fights, whose outcome will affect more than Jews.
Descartes’ Error
It is less reason than emotion that lies behind our choices, and it takes emotional intelligence to make good choices.
Taking It Personally
Leadership is a role. It is not an identity. It is not who we are. Therefore, a leader should never take an attack on their leadership personally.
What Made Joshua And Caleb Different?
People with the growth mindset react differently. They don't just seek challenge; they thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch.
Two Types Of Leadership
Adaptive leadership is called for when the world is changing, circumstances are no longer what they were, and what once worked works no more.
The Pursuit Of Peace
Why does the Torah spend so much time describing an event that could have been stated far more briefly by naming the princes and then simply telling us generically that each brought a silver dish, a silver basin and so on?
Liminal Space
The wilderness was not just a place; it was a state of being, a moment of solidarity, midway between enslavement in Egypt and the social inequalities that would later emerge in Israel.
The Rejection Of Rejection
The people may be faithless to G-d but G-d will never be faithless to the people.
Minority Rights
The Torah commands us in only one place to love our neighbor, but thirty-six times to love the stranger.
The Duality Of Jewish Time
According to the Torah, the first month of the year is Nissan. This was the day the earth became dry after the Flood (Gen. 8:13). It was the day the Israelites received their first command as a people (Ex. 12:2).
Judaism’s Three Voices
There are holy times and holy places, and each time and place has its own integrity, its own setting in the total scheme of things.
Is There Such Thing As Lashon Tov?
The disciples of Hillel hold that at a wedding you should sing that the bride is beautiful, whether she is or not.
Othello, WikiLeaks And Mildewed Walls
The most compelling illustration of what the tradition is speaking about when it talks of the gravity of motsi shem ra, slander, and lashon hara, evil speech, is Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello.
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