Enabling Citizen Cain
Our weekly Torah reading has once again cycled back to the Book of Genesis, returning to the stories and moral lessons of the earliest days of civilization. In addition to the ethical…
If Shabbat Is Saturday, Why Does It Begin On Friday Night?
There Was Evening, And There Was Morning... When following the Gregorian (secular) calendar, it is natural to think of the days of the week as Sunday, Monday....Friday, Saturday, each…
A Name Full of Promise
The best-known Hebrew name of God is spelled Yud - Hey - Vuv - Hey. It is a name considered so sacred that we never verbalize it, but instead read it as Ah-doh-nai (meaning “my Master”),…
A Sense of Guilt
At the end of the Book of Genesis, when Jacob passes away, his twelve sons journey together from Egypt to the Land of Israel to bury their father and then return to Egypt. After…
A Biblical Story Familiar To Our Time
There are some Jewish commentators who state that the entire history of the world can be found in the Book of Genesis if one just knows where to look. The narratives of Genesis do indeed…
The Result of This Union
There are many famous narratives (such as the story of Creation, the great Flood, the histories of the Patriachs, etc.) in the book of Genesis. There are, however, an equal number of…
Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah
Tonight starts the holiday of Shemini Atzeret, literally the Gathering of the Eighth, a connected, yet independent holiday, that immediately follows Sukkot. During the seven days of…
Vayikra 5777-2017
“רֵיחַ נִיחוֹחַ --A Sweet Savor unto the L-rd” by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald With this week's parasha, parashat Vayikra, we begin reading the third book of the Torah, Vayikra, which is…
Vayechi 5777-2017
“The Passing of the Last of the Patriarchs” by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald This week’s parasha, parashat Vayechi, is the final parasha of the book of Genesis. In this parasha, Jacob, the…
The Power of a Pronoun
The Book of Genesis contains many genealogical lists–the descendants of Adam and Eve, the descendants of Cain, the descendants of Noah, etc. In addition to chronicling the complete family…