Latest Essays

An emotionally evocative window into the suffering experienced by the victims of the siege of Jerusalem.

Even before Israel receives laws at Sinai, Exodus tells how Jethro the Midianite advises Moses to establish judges, a unique origin story for the judicial system with no parallel in ancient Near Eastern law collections. Deuteronomy revises the story to credit Moses with this idea after the revelation at Horeb.

Blood has a significant role in many biblical stories and rituals, most prominently in the atonement sacrifices of Leviticus. With the destruction of the Temple and the loss of sacrifices, Judaism and Christianity took very different paths to achieving atonement.

The Torah is often used to highlight various ethical values while its many ethically problematic commandments are ignored or explained away. Is there a way to treat the Torah as a moral authority while honestly confronting the ethical issues it raises?

Amos and Zechariah mention an earthquake in the time of King Uzziah. Its effects were uncovered in the excavations at Tel Agol in the Jezreel Valley: It turned the city, fortified for centuries to defend against the Assyrian threat, into a poor squatter town that could not recover.

The Torah describes God creating through speech, midrash mores specifically understands creation through the letters of the aleph-bet, and the kabbalists envision it as a series of divine emanations, contractions, and primal pairings. What meaning can we find in these ancient creation myths in light of evolution?

Crossing Wadi Zered marks the end of Israel’s 38-year sojourn in the wilderness and their entry into the land. Why does its location differ in Numbers and Deuteronomy?

The shift in biblical exegesis from homiletic readings to literary, contextual commentaries has its roots in Charlemagne’s 9th century Carolingian Revolution. It comes to the fore only in the 11th century with Rashi’s quasi-peshat commentary, soon followed by the peshat approach of R. Joseph Kara and Rashbam.

Miriam and Aaron speak negatively about Moses for marrying a Kushite woman. Does their issue have to do with her skin color? Miriam’s punishment may hold the key.

The use of the unusual verb מִדַּבֵּר, middabber in Numbers 7:89 suggests that YHWH does not speak to Moses in the literal and simple sense.

Psalm 116:15 declares the death of the righteous to be yaqar, often translated as “precious,” to God. To avoid this message some scholars reinterpret the word yaqar to mean “difficult” or “grievous,” but a better solution is available.

Chesed, lovingkindness, is a major theme in the book of Ruth. And yet, the rabbis have little sympathy for Orpah. To the contrary!

He was British Jewry’s outstanding homegrown rabbinic scholar, a protégé of Rabbi Eliyahu Munk, and described as an ilui (genius in Torah study) by R. Eliyahu Dessler. Yet R. Louis Jacobs’ desire to reconcile Judaism with academic studies led to his exclusion from Britain's orthodox rabbinate.

In several midrashim, God lovingly lifts Mount Sinai over the Israelites to protect them from the dangers of the revelation. One midrash, however, has God threatening to bury the Israelites with the mountain if they don’t accept the Torah. The difference is the intertext.

In the Second Temple Period the idea of “Torah” was not limited to the Five Books of Moses.