Latest Essays

Using archaeology, anthropology, and biblical Hebrew to explain why ancient Israelites overwhelmingly placed their doorways on the eastern side of their homes and avoided placing them on the west.

Jewish law prohibits the gelding of animals based on its interpretation of Leviticus 22:24. Is this what the Torah means? Why might the Torah have prohibited this, and how could the prohibition function in an agrarian society dependent on draft animals?

Leviticus 21 and Ezekiel 44 regulate whom priests may marry. What rationale lies behind these laws?

A struggling ex-slave and single mother labors against all odds to raise her son and shield him from the prejudices of the surrounding community.

In a fight with an Israelite, the son of an Egyptian man curses YHWH and is stoned to death. This story, one of only two in Leviticus, highlights a larger concern regarding the need to maintain the holiness of the camp on one hand and the rights of gerim (strangers) to live among the Israelites as equals on the other.

A polyphonic approach to reading the Torah

A fresh look at the legislation in Parashat Kedoshim: Are we reading the legal details wrong? 

In reference to the parturient, the Torah speaks of a 33 or 66 day period of דמי טהרה “blood of her purity” as distinguished from a 7 or 14 day period “like menstruation.” What is the difference between these two periods according to Leviticus and how did later groups such as rabbinic Jews, Karaites, Samaritans, and Beta Israel understand it?

Despite its lengthy coverage of tzaraat, biblical “leprosy,” the Torah omits discussion of its cause, its infectiousness, and its treatment. Comparison to the Mesopotamian rituals pertaining to a strikingly similar disease, Saḫaršubbû, shows that these omissions were far from accidental.

Reading the Book of Zephaniah and remembering a day of desolation and devastation in association with a utopian day to come.

“Great as the sea is your breaking,” Lamentations 2:13. Before we try to understand pain or tragedy, we must first perceive its magnitude.

When and why washing became immersion: between traditional-rabbinic and scientific-critical approaches to the origin of immersion and the mikveh.

Finding gender equality in the Song of Songs without compromising God and meaning.

God uses a qādîm “forward” wind to bring the locusts and blow back the sea – but what direction is qādîm? Did Israel and its neighbors answer this question the same way? Can ancient maps clarify this question?

The structures, the thrones, and the artwork.

The all pervading cosmic force. 

Moses and Aaron compete with the Egyptian ḥarṭummīm, “magicians,” who have the power to perform wonders. What do we know about such magicians from Egyptian sources?

YHWH tells Moses to go see Pharaoh in the morning by the Nile (Exodus 7:15). Why was he there? Did Pharaoh take a daily stroll by the Nile? Did he use the Nile as a privy, or worship it? Perhaps a literary approach may be more fruitful.

Expanding upon R. David Zvi Hoffmann’s insight that Parashat Tzav (Leviticus 6-7) was originally connected directly with the laws of the ordination/miluim sacrifice in Exodus 29, with a second sacrificial unit (Leviticus 1-5) spliced in the middle.

The plague of blood developed as a mythological amplification of an older account in which Moses strikes the Nile to kill the fish and make the water stink.

A new look at the “Passover Papyrus” from Elephantine and the nature of the Hebrew calendar in the Achaemenid Empire.

Is the Bible’s portrayal of the magicians (Ḥarṭummīm) in accord with Egyptian literature and ritual practice? How did the Israelite writers obtain this knowledge?

In the Priestly texts, observing the divine commandments became an end in itself while the unique meaning or purpose of the particular mitzvah took on less significance. Concomitantly, Priestly authors asserted the need for personal atonement through a chatat (sin offering) for even unintentionally violating God’s commandments.