Latest Essays

Korah’s rebellion ultimately results in the placement of the Levites in a permanent subordinate position to the Aaronide priests. Set in the wilderness period, the story appears to be a narrative retelling of a historical process that occurred hundreds of years later, the demotion of the Levites reflected in Ezek 44, as demonstrated by a number of literary parallels.

Using source criticism to disentangle a moral problem in the Torah

Kadesh-barnea is in the Wilderness of Paran, and Kadesh is in the Wilderness of Zin; how are we to explain the Scouts’ return to “Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran?”

Early Judahite authors supplemented ancient Israelite traditions of conquest through the Transjordan with the spy story to explain why Israel entered Canaan from the east rather than from the south.

In biblical tradition, Miriam is known as Moses’ sister. Critical analysis reveals more about this ancient and once independent leader. 

In the ancient world, genealogy was not about family relations but about political alliances.

The Torah often uses the repetition of certain terms and wordplay to underline important themes. Numbers uses the terms נשא (nas’a: “to carry”) and נסע (nas‘a; “to travel”) to highlight the development of Israel from independent clans to a nation in a way that fits well with the model of group formation first suggested by psychologist Bruce Tuckman.

The Concept of Juxtaposition (סמיכות פרשיות)

According to Ezra (3:4) and Nehemiah (8:14-15) the returnees celebrated the holiday of Sukkot according to the law as it “was written,” but differences between their celebrations and the prescriptions in the Torah suggest that the laws they had written were slightly different than ours. Was the Torah finalized by the time Ezra-Nehemiah was written?

By comparing the aggressive approach of Nehemiah towards the foreign wives of the Judahites with the positive role of Ruth as a Moabite woman who married into an Israelite family, we can attempt to uncover the core messages about Jewish identity that the two texts have in common.

No biblical text states that the Torah was given on Shavuot. What does it mean then that Shavuot is the “time of the giving of our Torah”?

Tracing the tannaitic and biblical sources for the famous claim that God held Mount Sinai over the Israelites and threatened to bury them if they did not accept the Torah.

The Priestly Torah has two different conceptions of why/how the firstborn Israelites are exempt from serving as priests. Is a questionable firstborn census an effort to weigh in on this dispute?

The Torah describes a practice of declaring people cherem, which means that the person, and—in some cases—his family, would be annihilated, and his possessions donated to the Temple. The rabbis were unhappy with this law and used their homiletical approach to “obliterate” it.

An attempt to control the disparity between the rich and the poor and create a righteous society

Rashbam’s New Peshat

Already in the time of the Rabbis, Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot was considered to be esoteric knowledge. Although most Jewish exegetes interpret it as a metaphorical teaching about God, Maimonides interpreted it to be about science and astronomy. So why must it be kept a secret? Because Ezekiel was wrong and his science mistaken.

The current scholarship about the identity of the Philistines, who they were, when they came to the Levant, and why.

Reading the Torah portion Acharei Mot, “After the Death,” as an opportunity for infusing life into the biblical text.

Ancient Israel had two separate customs relating to vineyards and wine that took place during the time of vintage: a fertility rite (חילול) that marked the first use of a vineyard’s produce, and an annual vintage celebration (הילולים) in which the winegrowers praised God for their harvest. As the rites seem to have been wild, the law of ‘orla and the fourth year produce (רבעי) in Lev. 19:23-25 attempts to restrict them.