Latest Essays

The book of Ruth tells the story of David’s great grandmother Ruth, a Moabite woman who attaches herself to a Judahite family. Could this have been designed as a positive spin for a persistent, problematic tradition about David’s foreignness—a tradition so controversial that it was excised from the rest of the Bible?

The mistaken exchange of the letter gimel for a vav corrupted the meaning of a key verse in Ruth.

The book of Ruth presents a different model of justice from that afforded by statute, custom, and precedent, one that seeks restorative as opposed to retributive justice.^[1]  

A look at Naomi’s theology, as expressed in her poem, and how it carries her through her grief and back into productive engagement.

Ancient scribes would write as if Moses was the author, or they would claim that a tradition was originally stated by Moses, but they did not intend to convey a historical fact with this description. Instead, they meant that a given tradition was “authentically” Jewish, or God’s will and that Moses would have approved. I call this phenomenon “Mosaic Discourse.”

Jerusalem in the 14th century B.C.E. was a Canaanite city; by the 10th/9th century B.C.E. it was Israelite. The Bible records several different accounts of how it was conquered. What are we to make of these different traditions?

Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 are often lumped together, as the two great curses, but their careful comparison reveals some fundamental and surprising differences.

How does the Torah envision that keeping kosher makes a person holy?

Jeremiah 32 describes the prophet’s redemption of his uncle’s ancestral land. The scribal authors turned this transaction into an oracle. Eventually, the passage was expanded to include a prayer in which Jeremiah invokes the exodus from Egypt and the gift of the land. Taken together, the passage inspires hope for exilic Jews that God will redeem their land as well.

The generative relationship between ancient texts and later interpretation can illuminate and revitalize the study of these texts, including the Bible.

Biblical narratives describe the Israelites living in tents in the wilderness and make no mention of sukkot, “booths.” So when and where did God “settle the Israelite people in booths”(Leviticus 23:43)? The answer: Kadesh! Although Israel journeys through the wilderness for forty years, they arrive at Kadesh early on and dwell there for more than thirty-five years.

A set of homilies from the Genizah connects two biblical readings (sidrot) in Leviticus by emphasizing the importance of the mitzvah of orlah as a key to inheriting and remaining on the land.

Emphasizing the Holiness of Ethics over the Ritual

Deuteronomy commands a man to marry the childless widow of his brother (yibbum). And yet, a close look at the Priestly text of the Torah shows that it did not have the option of yibbum.

With a Close Look at Its Biblical Sources

Ancient Near Eastern cultic rituals located the presence of gods and divine messages in nature.

Jewish tradition places a strong emphasis on the importance of repentance on Yom Kippur. It finds its way into Yom Kippur through a post biblical association between fasting and repentance. But what does fasting signify in the Bible and what did it mean originally in the context of Leviticus 16?

The Mourner’s Kaddish strengthens the connection of living Jews with their deceased relatives. The custom was developed by twelfth century Ashkenazi Jews as a way of saving their loved ones from Gehenna (hell) and making heaven available to all.

Popular legend tells us that Rabbenu Gershom (d. ca 1028) was the first to prohibit polygyny. The Damascus Covenant’s understanding of the law in Leviticus 18:18, however, suggests that polygyny may have been prohibited more than a thousand years earlier by the Priestly authors.

And what they reveal about his identity

The oldest layer of the exodus story has the Egyptian people, panicked by the plague of darkness, force the Israelites out under the king of Egypt’s nose. The story is later revised to credit the exodus to God's smiting the firstborn sons, and then drowning Pharaoh and his army in the sea. The final, Priestly editor added his signature theological innovation: God forces Pharaoh to give chase by hardening his heart.

The hidden polemic in the Torah’s note that “Israel did not escape by way of the Philistine coastal route”

Countering flaunting love with a call for intimacy.