Latest Essays

According to the Torah: Does God split the sea? Do the Israelites cross it? What is the wind for? Where are the Egyptians when they drown?

When Moses instructs the people to eat the manna on Shabbat, he emphasizes “today,” “today,” “today.” Is this repetition just Priestly literary style or is it meant to tell us that Shabbat begins in the morning, and not the evening like Pesach and Yom Kippur?

The free-will conundrum of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart—a supplementary approach.

Why do the Israelites name their first stop Marah “Bitter Waters,” if the story is about how Moses miraculously made the water sweet?

The evidence for the Levites leaving Egypt and the introduction of YHWH into Israel.

Is Moses raised by an Egyptian princess? Does he kill an Egyptian man? Does he run away to Midian and marry the daughter of a Midianite priest? Not according to P, which cleanses Moses of these problematic elements.

An inductive approach.

Could the story have its basis in natural phenomena?

In the Bible, the term “Hebrew” is primarily used as a derogatory racial slur. Why then do even Israelites—as well as God—employ this term?

The significance—or lack thereof—of family pedigree in matters of individual excellence and righteousness.

The Book of Exodus begins with an accounting of the members of Jacob's family who went with him to Egypt. Our Torah, the Masoretic Text, lists 70 people. Dead Sea Scroll manuscript 4QEx^b, however, records 75 people. How do we account for this and other differences between the texts?

Several biblical and non-biblical texts describe encounters with flying venomous snakes in the Sinai and Arabian deserts. Egyptian iconography helps clarify what is being pictured.

Bringing Parashat Vayechi to Life

Why was Jacob’s funeral procession across the Jordan?

God tells Jacob, “I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back” (Genesis 46:4), a reassurance intended to speak to readers in the exilic period.

מזמור שיר חנכת הבית לדוד, “A song of the dedication of the Temple of David”

Biblical concepts about the Second Temple, its purification, and dedication strongly inform the development of Chanukah’s earliest customs and symbols.

Why the rabbis ended Parashat Miketz with a cliffhanger (in both the Babylonian and the Eretz-Yisraeli traditions), and what the Ancient Near Eastern legal context of “evidence law” can clarify for us about the background of the story.

The historical symbolism of the twelve tribes and the geographical significance of the tribe of Benjamin.