The first story in today’s Sidra describes the visit of three angels to Abraham. They appeared to him as three idolatrous Arab men. Despite their unfamiliar appearance, Abraham invited them into his tent, most warmly and gave them a delicious meal. Abraham’s amazing kindness towards them has become a most important story in our religion, […]
Our Sidra is called Lech Lecha, which is a striking name. LECH means GO. But what does Lecha mean in this context? According to Rashi it implies that God told Abram to go for his own benefit. Nachmanides disagrees. He argues that this is simply a Hebrew expression. The pronoun ‘Lecha’ is often attached to […]
The Torah describes No’ach as a perfectly righteous person. However, some of our ancient rabbis were critical of him. They explained that, unlike Abraham, he didn’t have the strength of character and the power of persuasion to engage in arguments with his wicked neighbours and friends. He secluded himself concentrating on learning about spiritual matters […]
The name of the Sidra means HE APPEARED. The first sentence of the Sidra tells us that God appeared to Abraham in a place called Elone Mamre. Elon is a name of a tree. Alon means a tree and today is has become a beautiful Modern Israeli name. Mamre was one of Abraham’s Amorite allies. […]
The name of the Sidra means GO. God addresses Avram, Abraham’s original name, for the first time, and instructs him as follows: “Go to the land which I will show you.” The Torah does not explain why God spoke to Avram. The call came out of the blue. Only in next week’s Sidra, we read […]
The name of this week’s Sidra means “At the beginning”. It comes from the Hebrew word Rosh, which means HEAD. The first chapter describes the creation of the world in seven days. It is worth noting that many commentators agree that the Torah is not meant to teach only history and that the account we […]
The Sidra of Vayechi begins in the Torah scroll in a unique way. All the others Sidrot begin on a new line, or on the same line, with the space of nine letters separating them from the previous Sidra. But this Sidra begins in the middle of the paragraph, without any break. It seems […]
The Sidra of Mikketz describes Joseph’s miraculous rise to power. Unfortunately, ancient Egyptian documents, which shed clear light on the whole story of the Israelites’ migration and stay in Egypt, have not yet been discovered. Therefore, there are different opinions regarding the identity of the King of Egypt who appointed Joseph to his high […]
This Sidra of Vayeshev is devoted, mainly, to the story of Joseph. It begins by telling us that when Joseph was young, he was cared for by Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, because his own mother, Rachel, had died. Leah had six children of her own, so she had no time to look after […]
The Sidra of Vayishlach begins with the story of Jacob’s return to the land of Canaan after 20 years of absence. He was extremely concerned about meeting Esau, and was determined to do all in his power to secure peaceful coexistence with him. Therefore, he sent messengers to speak to him as humbly as they […]