Bereishit

Sarah's conspicuous absence from the dramatic Akeidah narrative is the subject of both traditional and scholarly interpretation. Michael Wolff offers an approach through the lens of gender roles.

Yisroel Benporat juxtaposes the Akeidah with the Splitting of the Sea as similar tests of faith.

Jordan Soffer examines the two narratives of Calev and Yitro through a lens of effective community leadership.

Surprisingly, Bible scholars have not addressed the remarkable intertextual conversation between Jacob's blessings in Genesis 49 and Deborah's song in Judges 5. Michael Bernstein offers his original etymological analysis of the two poetic texts.

Gavriel Lakser offers a new approach to the problem of evil based on the beginning of Genesis.

The Mei Ha-Shiloah’s statements on predetermination pose a theological challenge to foundational Jewish doctrines. In an analysis weaving together several Torah narratives and Izhbitzer commentaries, Reuven Boshnack proposes an empowering interpretation of the Mei Ha-Shiloah.

David Schwartz explores thematic similarities between the Hanukkah miracle and Pharaoh’s dreams.

The stories of Hagar and Ishmael's banishment and subsequent rescue by the angel and that of a cast-out baby Moses on the Nile rescued by Pharaoh's daughter are seemingly dissimilar, but this close reading by David Curwin argues that their strong parallels have a lesson to teach about the importance of being active and not succumbing to passivity.

Tamar Weissman shows how the Druze minority in Israel remarkably resemble the biblical Kenites.

In a follow up to her recent piece about Joseph, Batya Hefter traces Judah's character development through the eyes of the Ishbitz-Radzyn masters.