By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant The translation of this week’s Torah parsha, Chayei Sarah, is ‘The Life of Sarah’. Ironically, only the first two lines of the parsha pertain to the death of Sarah and no other aspect of her life is even mentioned again. Rashi wrote that the death of Sarah is […]
Posts with the Bissel of Torah tag
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: VAYEIRA (GENESIS 18:1-22:4)
By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant Towards the end of last week’s parsha, we read of the supernatural birth of Isaac to Sarah and Abraham. At the time, Abraham was one hundred years old; and Sarah was in her nineties, well beyond child-bearing age. God made a covenant with Isaac, circumcising him eight days […]
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: LECH LECHA (GENESIS 12:1-17:27)
By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant This week’s Torah parsha, Lech Lecha, begins with God’s words to Abram: “Go forth from your birthplace to the land which I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, bless you and aggrandize your name”(1). The writers of the Midrash had many obvious […]
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: BEREISHIT (GENESIS 1:1-6:8)
By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant “In the beginning of God’s creation of the heavens and earth, God said: “Let there be light; and there was light”(1). The first Torah parsha of the Book of Genesis, Bereishit, is probably the most familiar of any other portions of the Torah. The wondrous origination of the […]
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: V’ZOTHABRACHA (DEUTERONOMY 33:1-34:12)
By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant This week’s Torah parsha is the final reading in the last of the five Books of the Torah. The Parsha begins with Moses blessing each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Echoing Jacobs’s blessings to his twelve sons, five generations earlier, Moses assigns and empowers each tribe with […]