Do you believe in angels? Of course it depends on what you think angels are. Are they supernatural beings in white shifts and sets of wings (usually with long blond hair) as much religious imagery imagines them? Or are they simply human beings who play a part in the Divine plan? Maimonides, the great philosopher and rationalist thought that angles…
Sefer Bereishit
Can You Ask God To Wait?
“And God appeared to Avraham…and he looked up and saw three men. And he said “If it please you, do not go away.” The great commentator Rashi gives two very different interpretations. The first is that God appears to Avraham in the form of three men who each will give Avraham information crucial to him and his future. He addresses…
Can You Argue With God?
When Abraham learns that Sodom is going to be destroyed he pleads with God. He says “Will the Judge of the Universe not be just?” And of course God replies that if there are any good men there He will not destroy the cities of the valley. It is incredibly difficult to understand this exchange. God is not a human…
Yishmael
Sarai is barren. In a kind of precursor of modern, surrogacy ( something practiced amongst priestly and aristocratic women in the ancient world) her maid Hagar gives birth “on her thighs” to a child fathered by Avram. Last week we read about the tensions between mistress and slave. She obviously believes that her pregnancy gives her rights. Sarah appears to…
Binding Isaac
The story of how Avraham took his son Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him to God is iconic. It has been interpreted and re-interpreted so many times in so many different ways from Christianity to Leonard Cohen. Early Christianity saw the failure of Abraham to actually kill his son as a sign of weakness. They believed that when their…
Avram’s Journeys
When does a journey begin? When you plan it? When you start? When you get half way? Or when you complete the voyage? All these possibilities, might apply to Avram’s journey ( he was Avraham after he was Avram). When did God command him to go? In Chapter 11 the Torah says Avram was living in Ur of the Chaldees,…