Vayera
«Sí que te reíste»
Es uno de los diálogos más breves entre Dios y un ser humano de toda la Torá, y uno de los más extraños. Los tres hombres que llegan a la tienda de Abraham le han prometido que…
Parashá y festividades
Lech Lecha
El que me ve
La primera vez que la Torá emplea la expresión «un ángel del Señor», el ángel no se le aparece a
Noach
El arco en la nube
Cuando las aguas han bajado y el arca descansa vacía sobre el monte, Dios establece el primer pacto de la Torá y le da la primera señal. Cabría esperar que la señal fuese para…
Bereshit
El primer «no es bueno»
Siete veces nos dice el primer capítulo de la Torá que aquello que Dios hizo era bueno. Buena es la luz. Buenos son la tierra seca y los mares reunidos. Las hierbas y los árboles…
Essays
What Exactly Are We Celebrating on Hanukkah?
The story everyone knows, the Maccabees against the Greeks, did not even make it into the Bible. What the tradition kept instead is one small flask of oil, in a history full of…
Essays
Why Do We Invite Guests to the Bread of Affliction?
At the start of the Seder the matzah is the bread of slavery, and by the middle of the night the very same matzah is the bread of freedom. We also open the evening by calling the…
Vayera
Enough to Save a City
Abraham stops bargaining at ten. Why ten, and what is it about ten righteous people that might save a city?
Lech Lecha
Why Does the Torah Tell Us Nothing About Abraham?
Before God speaks to Noach, the Torah tells us he was righteous. About Abraham, who receives the most important call in the history of faith, it says nothing: not who he was, not…
Bereshit
The Servants of the King
There is a verse at the end of the fourth chapter of Bereishit that most of us read without pausing. After the murder of Abel, after Cain's exile, after Lamech's dark boast of…
Ha'azinu
The Rock and the Mountain
In the second century, in the years when Rome had made the teaching of Torah a capital crime, a man was wrapped in the scroll he had been caught teaching from and set alight.…
Nitzavim
The House We Were Born Into
Everyone is there. That is the first thing this week's parsha wants us to notice, and it takes its time about
Ki Tavo
The Memory of Lack
There is a quiet strangeness at the opening of this week's parsha. A farmer, having worked his land and gathered its first ripe fruit, carries a basket of it to the Temple in an…
Shoftim
The Blood No One Shed
There is a road, somewhere in the hill country, and on it a body. A traveller, struck down between one town and the next, lying in an open field. No one saw it happen. No one…
Eikev
Because You Remember
In this week's parsha, at the height of his final speech, Moses does something surprising. He turns from the perils his people have survived — Egypt, the sea, forty years in a…
Vaetchanan
The Prayer That Was Answered
That is what the Sages counted when they looked at the first word of this week's parsha. Va'etchanan — "and I pleaded" — has the numerical value of 515, and the Midrash reads the…
Balak
A People That Dwells Alone: Distinct, Not Isolated
Is Bilaam's "a people that dwells alone" a blessing or a curse? Being alone in Tanach is rarely good. The essay separates being set apart, which is our calling, from being…
Behar
Why Is "All Israel Are Responsible" Hidden in the Curses?
The Sages found the principle that all Jews are responsible for one another in a verse of rebuke, because that bond had to survive exile. From there to eleven Jews in Pristina…
Shmini
Strange Fire
After weeks of preparation, on the very day the service of the Sanctuary begins, Aaron's two sons die. The Torah's explanation is the briefest possible: a fire that was not…
Mishpatim
Why Does the Torah Suddenly Turn from Story to Law?
For whole books the Torah tells a story: the patriarchs, the slavery in Egypt, the way out. Then, straight after Sinai, it turns to rules about debts, strangers and an enemy's…
Yitro
Was the Free Society Really Born in Athens?
Ask where the free society began and most histories will point you to Athens. Yet long before the Greeks, a people stood at the foot of a mountain, and three things happened…
Bo
Why Didn't Moses Talk About Freedom?
Days before the Israelites walk out of Egypt, with the greatest empire of the ancient world on its knees, Moses stands up to speak. He says nothing about freedom, nothing about…
Vaera
If God Strengthened Pharaoh's Heart, Why Was Pharaoh Punished?
From the sixth plague on, the Torah tells us that it was God who strengthened Pharaoh's heart. But if Pharaoh had no freedom to choose, how could he carry any blame, and what…
Shemot
Why Does God Answer Moses in the Future Tense?
Moses asks God for His name, and the answer is often translated "I am what I am." But that translation misses what God is actually saying. When Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi is asked who…
Vayechi
Why Can Genesis Only Close After Forgiveness?
After Jacob dies, Joseph's brothers are terrified that the brother who sent them home with kind words has only been waiting for this moment. From its first brothers on, Genesis…
Vayeshev
Why Did Jacob Refuse to Be Comforted?
Jacob refused to be comforted over Joseph. That refusal, the essay argues, is the Jewish stance toward history: we live by possibility, not probability, and one small act can…
Vayishlach
Who Was Jacob Really Wrestling?
The Torah tells us Jacob was by himself, and then, in the same breath, that he was wrestling with a man. Out of that strange night comes the name we still carry today. So who was…