The passage called Mishpatim in Torah begins with laws about slaves and slavery. It’s not an easy topic to discuss in America. Colonial slavery most people are familiar with in America, was truly brutal, unjust, and inhumane. The mistreatment of slaves in America in the not-so-distant past still has...
In Numbers 17:7, Torah says that a cloud of God’s glory appeared all around them. God spoke to them, hiramu mitoch haedah “Get away from the midst of the assembly.” And God continued, va’akhaleh otam ke’raga “I will consume them in one moment,” or literally, “I...
Sometimes people genuinely lack humility, and they are totally unaware of it. People can be very proud and self-important, conceited, pumped up about themselves, and have an inflated view of themselves. Sometimes people are arrogant and stubborn, overconfident, snobbish, obstinate, braggadocios, and pompous. Most of us see these character qualities,...
Are you puzzled by the visions of John's Revelation? Many people find his book inspirational and very interesting, but it remains a veiled message. These are audio excerpts from several lectures I gave live on "How to Read the Book of Revelation as Jewish Literature." The main idea is simple....
My discussion continues as I compare John's Apocalypse to other Jewish books. I compare the imagery of Revelation to other similar Jewish writings and look at even the methodology used in other Jewish spiritual books that overlaps with Revelation....
In this segment, I focus on reading the Book of Revelation as a letter written to real people. This approach introduces an interesting dynamic that is sometimes lost when 21st-century readers engage with it....
Letters are typically addressed to someone from someone. In this segment of my lecture, I look at the authors, writers, or senders of the message called the Apocalypse....
On the one hand, Leviticus offers us dull instructions for something that does not even happen anymore. The Temple has been destroyed for almost 2000 thousand years now. But on the other hand, these instructions to Aaron show us something significant about God and his expectation of how we are...
Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, foolishly tells his dreams to his brothers. Torah tells us that the disposition of Joseph’s brothers towards him was extremely negative. In Gen 37:4 we read venisneu oto “and they hated him” velo yakhlu davro leshalom “and could not speak shalom, speak well...