Mirror, Mirror
Building on ideas from Jacques Lacan and Rabbeinu Bahya ibn Pakuda, Zach Truboff offers an innovative psychological reading of the Cain and Abel story.
Get Your Hashkafa Out of My Chumash!
Yaakov Jaffe provides an ideological argument against including ideology in our Chumashim.
No Milk, No Trust
Beth Kissileff explains how Moses' complaint about not being the Israelite's nursemaid shows how he is unfit for leadership.
Of Split Wood and Waters
Nachum Krasnopolsky explains Rashbam's interpretation of the splitting of the sea as an educational experience.
Letter to the Editor: Response to Ben Greenfield on the Forefathers’ Attributes
In his letter to the editor, Gershon Klapper draws upon three medieval sources that undermine Ben Greenfield's recent reading of the Zohar on the three attributes of the Avot.
Rupture and Revelation
Ayelet Wenger weaves together the personal, historical and exegetical in advance of reading Sefer Shemot.
Abraham’s “Diminished” Weeping: An Orthographic Note Inspired by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Zt”l
There’s a miniature kaf at the beginning of the parashah. As Gabriel Slamovits explains, what the diminished letter says about how Abraham mourned for Sarah fits well with a prominent teaching of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt”l.
In Six Barleys were Wrapped an Enduring Legacy
Ezra Zuckerman Sivan examines the significance of the six barleys that Boaz gives Ruth in light of the story of Rachel, Leah, and the duda'im.
Military Might as Reluctant Religious Virtue: The Bizarre Inclusion of Genesis 14 in Tanakh
Abraham’s participation in the war of the four kings against the five fits uncomfortably in the broader narrative of his life. Rabbi Mark Glass argues that this Abrahamic episode articulates a core Torah perspective on military might.
Inconsistencies in the Torah: Shamor vs. Zakhor
Gavriel Lakser explains how the change from Zakhor to Shamor is one of the earliest examples of Oral Torah.