Latest Essays

A mother’s joy, loss, and recovery serves as an etiology of human grief.

The Sons of Elohim sleeping with women and producing demigods (Genesis 6:1-4) is sandwiched between the birth of Noah and the flood. This juxtaposition of passages prompted 1 Enoch and Genesis Apocryphon to question whether Lamech was Noah's father or whether Noah was a demigod.

YHWH comes from the south to be enthroned by the tribes of Israel in Ashdot-hapisgah (Deuteronomy 33:2), a later name for the city of Nebo. The Mesha Stele documents the presence of a YHWH worship site, whose hieros logos is tied to the tomb of Moses, the “plot of the lawgiver” (v. 21) located in the territory of Gad.

The Torah frames two different poetic descriptions of the tribes as the deathbed blessings of Jacob and Moses, pivotal points in Israel's history. Nevertheless, these poems express varying perspectives on the relative importance of the tribes and were once likely independent collections.

Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility. The constant sonorous repetition, visualizations, and references to breath serve as a sustained meditation to help free the reader’s soul from the agonizing struggle of life.

Self-affliction and fasting heightens awareness of our bodies; at the same time, it helps us to transcend our immanent selves. This tension was embraced by the 6th century poet Yannai in his qerova, who beseaches God to forgive Israel both out of pity for their wretchedness and on account of their resemblance to angels.

The Akedah (binding of Isaac) takes place on a mountain in the obscure land of Moriah. When a Judahite scribe later revised the story to have the angel of YHWH stop Abraham from killing his son, he connected Moriah with the Jerusalem Temple, thereby giving it a new hieros logos—a sacred founding legend, to compete with the northern worship site Beth-El.

Moses, on his last day, recites two poems—the Song of Moses and Blessing of Moses (Deut 32, 33). In this spirit, the eighth century Tiberian Pinchas Hakohen poetically describes Moses excusing his sins and offering alternatives to his death.

During the Second Temple period, the scapegoat was tied with a crimson thread. While the Torah requires a crimson thread as part of the purification ritual for tzaraʿat (skin disease), it does not mention it by the scapegoat. Nevertheless, parallel practices found in 2^nd millennium B.C.E. Hittite texts of Luwian origin imply that the use of a crimson thread is not a late innovation but an ancient part of the rite.

The New Year was celebrated on the festival of ingathering of grapes, accompanied by a sacrificial meal and wine. YHWH was declared to be Israel’s king and judge, and his presence, as it was manifest in the ark, was paraded before the Israelites by the king.

In Deuteronomy, YHWH chooses Israel to be his holy (kadosh) and treasured (segulah) people. What does this mean in its original context, and can it be reconciled with contemporary universalist notions?

Moses extends the covenant to all of Israel, “from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” (Deuteronomy 29). The midrash connects this group with the Gibeonites of Joshua 9, creating an anachronism which later rabbinic commentators try to resolve.

“The secret things belong unto YHWH our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever”—the verse has eleven dotted letters indicating erasure marks, but why? The answer lies in a controversial interpretation found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This is the place of My throne and the place for the soles of My feet... Ezekiel 43:7

If an Israelite wishes to marry a woman taken captive in war, she becomes part of the Israelite community and is protected from future re-enslavement. Uncomfortable with the Torah’s permission of this marriage, the rabbis declare it to be a concession to man’s “evil impulse,” an idea reminiscent of Jesus’ assertion that the Torah allows divorce as a concession to humanity’s “hard heart.”

A wife who intervenes in a fight to save her husband by grabbing his opponent’s testicles is punished by having her hand cut off (Deut 25:11–12). What is the nature of her offense? Why isn’t her intent to save her husband a mitigating factor? What is the relationship between the punishment and the crime?

The body of an executed criminal is hanged but must be buried on the same day, כִּי קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים תָּלוּי, “because a hanged body is a cursing of God” (Deuteronomy 21:23). What does this phrase mean?

Deuteronomy promises the Israelites that God will continue sending prophets “like Moses.” But if the Torah’s legislation cannot be adjusted, what is the role of later prophets? And how can all the changes to Torah law made by the rabbis be justified?

Ahab’s 400 court prophets all assure him that he will defeat Aram, but the prophet Micaiah tells him that these prophets are being enticed by a lying spirit, sent by YHWH himself, for the purpose of destroying Ahab. If Ahab had been willing to face his own position vis-a-vis God honestly, he would have known who was telling the truth.

When the State of Israel was established, the leading figures in religious Zionism had to justify Israel’s right to conscript soldiers using Jewish legal sources.

Deuteronomy’s requirement to destroy a city whose inhabitants worship another god and to leave it as an eternally desolate mound, can be understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties. Specifically, Hittite texts describe how kings dealt with rebellious vassal cities, by destroying them utterly and dedicating their land to the gods.

Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue made of four metals in Daniel 2 was composed using Persian and Greek historiographic imagery. The crushing of the statue by a stone mountain alludes to the story of the golden calf, and is a message of hope to the Judeans that God will eventually crush their Greek oppressors.

“Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God,” נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי יֹאמַר אֱלֹהֵיכֶם. Thus begins the prologue to Deutero-Isaiah (40:1–11), a passage containing four speech fragments haunted by the past but offering a message of comfort and hope.

The Second Temple was destroyed in the course of the Judaean Revolt (66–73 C.E.) against Rome, and looms large in Jewish history for the way in which it decisively shaped the future of Judaism. But how different was it from other revolts against Rome? Are there elements that mark the Judaean Revolt as unique and essentially different?

The Quran makes multiple intertextual connections with the Shema and its rabbinic commentary in its qiblah (“direction”) passages, thus highlighting a point of agreement between Jews and Muslims: Prayer is not about the physical direction you face but about loving God with all your heart.