Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on December 31, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha marks the end of the Yosef narrative (though he is still alive and present in at least one important scene in next week’s parsha too), where he is finally reconnected with his family, and, perhaps most importantly, with his father. There is an interesting verse when the brothers return to Yaakov/Yisrael where Continue Reading »
Posted on December 16, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha is full of the narrative action we have become familiar with in Bereishit, with this parsha in particular being so great as to be turned into a Broadway musical (Joseph and the Amazing Coat of Many Colours). However, a less-known fact is that the Rashbam chooses the beginning of this parsha to Continue Reading »
Posted on December 8, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha has so much going on that it is hard to figure out one thing to talk about. I want to focus on something that occurs simply on the level of the text itself, without considering any commentators. Over the course of Bereishit so far, a number of people have had their names Continue Reading »
Posted on December 1, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha presents a number of fascinating narratives, as it deals with the major portion of Yaakov’s adult life prior to his children taking center stage in the narrative. On the cursory reading that time allows me, the interactions between Yaakov and his father-in-law (and uncle) Lavan are extremely hard to follow. It may Continue Reading »
Posted on November 25, 2011 by Barer
One of the things that stayed with me after spending most of my four months in Chumash class last year at Pardes studying this week’s parsha is how important it is to consider Yitzchak’s mindset as he blesses his sons. This is someone who probably had a very rocky relationship with their own father, and, Continue Reading »
Posted on November 17, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha, with bookends describing the death of Sarah and the other descendents of Avraham and the descendents Yishma’el, deals mainly with the mission of Avraham’s servant to find a wife for Yitzchak. Reading the text, I was struck by how repetitive the story is. First, Avraham tells his servant what to do in Continue Reading »
Posted on November 10, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha is chalk-full of troubling stories, from the Akieda, arguably the most challenging section of the Torah, to the destruction of Sdom and Amorah, to the episode of Lot and his daughters. What caught my attention while reading the parsha, though, was a subtler play on language related to rhetorical questions. There are Continue Reading »
Posted on November 3, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha contains many famous and thought-provoking stories, but I would like to focus on what I see as an emerging motif in the Rashbam, where he criticizes his grandfather’s reading of a verse before offering an alternate interpretation which he sees as sticking more closely to the pshat, the simple reading of the Continue Reading »
Posted on October 28, 2011 by Barer
The end of this week’s parsha, like last week’s, details the lineages leading to the main protagonists of Bereishit, mainly those of Noach’s children. Unsurprisingly, for those who know the story that comes next, the lineages rush through the generations in between Noach and Avram and then slow down just in time to talk about Continue Reading »
Posted on October 25, 2011 by Barer
[Sorry for the delay; cross-posted from my blog] With the conclusion of Simchat Torah we are embarking upon reading the Torah from the beginning once again. For my own study, I have moved ahead (or behind, depending on who you ask) two generations to study the commentary of the Rashbam on the Torah. The Rashbam Continue Reading »
