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Weekly Torah Commentary on 02 3rd, 2010 |
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Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23
It is testimony to the universality of the Torah that the very portion which describes the election of Israel as God’s “kingdom of priests” through the Covenant at Sinai is named after the world’s greatest high-priest of idolatry, Yitro – Jethro – who on hearing of God’s miracles for Israel and the justice He brought upon Egypt, became a convert to the Torah of HaShem.
And lest the convert imagine that as one who has entered Israel from...
Posted by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum in
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Weekly Torah Commentary on 01 28th, 2010 |
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Beshallah, Exodus 13:17-17:16
The three main narratives in our portion – about the crossing of the Red Sea, the Manna that sustained Israel in the wilderness and the war of Amalek – come to teach fundamental lessons about Faith and Trust that relate to all people.
The Splitting of the Sea
The simultaneous redemption of Israel and destruction of their Egyptian oppressors through the splitting of the Red Sea was a miracle that sent reverberations through the entire world: “The peoples...
Posted by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum on 02 3rd, 2010
Yitro, Exodus 18:1-20:23
It is testimony to the universality of the Torah that the very portion which describes the election of Israel as God’s “kingdom of priests” through the Covenant at Sinai is named after the world’s greatest high-priest of idolatry, Yitro – Jethro – who on hearing of God’s miracles for Israel and the justice He brought upon Egypt, became a convert...
Posted by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum on 01 21st, 2010
Nearly twenty-four hundred years ago the prophet Zephaniah foresaw that in the end of days God will “turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of God, to serve Him with one accord” (Zephaniah 3:9).
Can we today see any signs of a pathway of devotion that has the potential to encompass and unify all the peoples of the world in God’s service? A possible...
Posted by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum on 01 21st, 2010
Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16
We see in the account of the Ten Plagues and the Exodus that God repeatedly discriminated between the Egyptian masters – who were stricken – and their Israelite slaves, who were saved. This happened in the case of the plague of wild animals (Ex. 8:18-19), the pestilence that afflicted the Egyptian livestock (ibid 9:4, 6), the hail (ibid. v. 26), the darkness (10:23), and...
Posted by Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum on 01 14th, 2010
Va-eira, Exodus 6:2-9:35
The dramatic story of the redemption of the enslaved people of Israel from their Egyptian masters takes up the first four portions of the book of Exodus. Of these, the second – our present portion – and the one that follows it describe in graphic detail the series of Ten Plagues with which God struck Egypt until they capitulated and sent their slaves forth to freedom. Our...