Shemot

Daniel Berkove shows how parallels between the building of the Tabernacle and the building of Pharaoh's storage cities shed light on the differences between civilizations that those structures represent.

Sharing his Torah commentaries in English for the first time, Nissim Bellahsen of France examines the role of Moses in the atonement for Joseph's sale.

Whose idea was Sinai? A midrash contends that Sinai was first conceived by Jethro. Ezra Zuckerman Sivan supports this Midrash from the Torah's text, and explains why Jethro was the appropriate vehicle for providing the rationale of Sinai.

Was the teiva an attempt to save Moshe's life? David Fried challenges our assumptions about the purpose of the wicker basket in the river.

Nachum Krasnopolsky explains Rashbam's interpretation of the splitting of the sea as an educational experience.

The poetry of the Mishkan: Abe Mezrich mines Parshat Terumah for its poetic potential.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explains how an enigmatic passage in Masekhet Shabbat teaches us how we can use Shabbat to connect to an oft-hidden God.

Ben Greenfield calls attention to a crucial, but unnoticed feature of the early narratives in Exodus.

Michael Kurin analyzes the building and existence of the Mishkan as a form of spiritual redemption for the mistakes which took place in the Garden of Eden.

The biblical account of the holiday we refer to as Shavuot bears no relationship at all to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The emergence of the association between this harvest festival and the Sinai covenant has therefore occupied both traditional and academic thinkers for centuries. Tzvika Aviv argues for a previously unexplored approach to the question, one which bridges the mystical insights of the Zohar with current scientific knowledge regarding wheat genetics.