Study the Torah with Academic Scholarship

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use

Suffering

God’s Absence

In the Bible, God’s appearance is a blessing, while God’s hidden face is a punishment. But does that mean we've been punished for millennia? Chasidic masters offer a profound reinterpretation: God’s absence is a divine invitation—calling those who are willing to seek God out, to forge a deeper connection.

Rabbi

David Wolpe

,

,

Speaking Truth to Power, Job Accuses God of Being Unjust

Job’s friends piously justify God’s actions and challenge Job to accept that he has done wrong. Yet God sides with Job and rebukes the friends for not “speaking about me in honesty as did my servant Job.”

Prof.

Edward L. Greenstein

,

,

The Book of Job and its Paradoxical Relationship with the Akedah

The inscrutable story of the Akedah, can be better understood in light of its subversive sequel, the equally morally complex book of Job.

Judy Klitsner

,

,

Naomi’s Bitter Poem

A look at Naomi’s theology, as expressed in her poem, and how it carries her through her grief and back into productive engagement.

Prof. Rabbi

Jonathan Magonet

,

,

The Golden Calf: Comparing the Two Versions

Exodus versus Deuteronomy

Prof. Rabbi

David Frankel

,

,

The “Man” in Lamentations

Unlike the other four chapters where the author speaks for the community, the third chapter of Lamentations is written as an individual lament. The chapter begins with “I am the man who has known affliction,” but who is he?

Prof.

Jacob Klein

,

,

Communicating Catastrophe

“Great as the sea is your breaking,” Lamentations 2:13. Before we try to understand pain or tragedy, we must first perceive its magnitude.

Dr.

Tzvi Novick

,

,

God Opened Her Womb – The Biblical Conception of Fertility

Is infertility a divine punishment? 

Prof.

Joel Baden

,

,