By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant This week’s parsha, Vayetzei, begins with Jacob on the run from his family and home. Although he leaves with his father, Isaac’s birthright and blessing, these were obtained under false pretenses. His mother, Rebecca, heard his brother, Esau, mutter that he intended to kill Jacob for this deception. […]
Posts with the Genesis tag
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: TOLDOT (GENESIS 25:17-28:9)
By Joy Scott, Am Haskalah Congregant This week’s parsha presents an ancestral tale that haunts us with its theme of cunning and deception. As the narrative proceeds, we realize that each of the characters presented in Toldot is caught in a web of relationships; a web of words, true and false, from which they […]
A ‘Bissel’ of Torah: CHAYEI SARAH (GENESIS 23:1-24:67)
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 […]
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 […]