Audio with brief annotations. Let your eyes rest as you learn by listening. Exercise, walk your dog, or just kick back in a comfy chair and listen.
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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
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On the one hand, Leviticus offers us dull instructions for something that does not even happen anymore. Sacrifices, Offerings, the Altar. The Temple has been destroyed for almost two thousand years now. But on the other hand, these instructions to Aaron show us something significant about God and his expectation
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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
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In Leviticus 16:1, our reading begins with the words, acharei mot shnei benei Aharon bekarbatam. It says that “Aaron’s two sons died because they drew too close to Hashem.” This is interesting because that is not how their story is always seen. Most readers focus on their behavior
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In Exodus 13:17 Torah says that God did not lead the Israelites by the land of the Philistines, a much shorter route. Hebrew texts literally says, ki karov hu “though it was closer.” Instead, God led the Israelites through the wilderness path, passing through the sea of reeds, a
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In Chayei Sara we read the story of Abraham commissioning his servant to search for a wife for his son Isaac. Abraham is certain that he does not want a wife from any of the local families in Canaan. Why? But he is also very certain that he does not
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As soon as Jacob resolved to head back home to Canaan, he knew he would be in danger because of his brother. Him and his entire family. So, in Gen 32:12, Jacob prays - hatizileni na meyad achi “Deliver me please from the hand of my brother.” Jacob was
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In our parsha, Vayera, we read the story of Sodom and Amorah, the story of true sinners in the hands of an angry God. Only things are a bit different. In Torah we see Abram and how he graciously pleads for the evil people of Sodom, imploring God not to
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In Gen 1:14-19 the Torah says that Hashem has set the lights in the sky for several reasons. First - to separate the day from the night. Second - to serve as signs for the times, days, and years. In other words to display stable predictable patterns to help
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Was Jesus a Rabbi? Some people would say yes, some no and some would be unsure how to answer. There is a good reason why the answers are often different. This is not a straightforward question. The term rabbi appeared sometime just prior to the first century CE and its
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Was Jesus a Rabbi? Some people would say yes, some no and some would be unsure how to answer. There is a good reason why the answers are often different. This is not a straightforward question. The term rabbi appeared sometime just prior to the first century CE and its
>Audio
The Psalms of Solomon are a collection of eighteen Jewish poetic compositions from around the second or first century BCE. They were originally composed in Hebrew or possibly in Aramaic. But the oldest manuscripts that have survived to our times are the Greek and Syrian Aramaic translations of the original