Among Parshat Mishpatim‘s many ethical ordinances is the provision for a refuge to shelter manslaughterers from those seeking vendetta justice.[1] While similar havens are explored in later discussions of arei miklat—biblical Israel’s “cities of refuge”—the asylum referenced here is specifically for the desert generation, for whom Rashi teaches, God designated “the encampment of the Levites” …
Read MoreParshat Vaera continues the conversation between God and Moses following Moses’s first encounter with Pharaoh. God persists in his alternately tender and impatient wooing of the reluctant emissary, while Moses insists that he is unfit for the task. As before, Moses’s feelings of inadequacy center on his difficulty with speech, now captured, ironically, by his …
Read MoreParshat Vayigash details one of the Torah’s most dramatic episodes: After Judah delivers an anguished monologue, the vizier Joseph reveals his identity as the boy whom, 22 years earlier, his brothers had sold into slavery. Judah’s words, which have prompted this revelation, are a response to the threat of Benjamin’s imprisonment, the final turn in …
Read MoreThe epic rivalry between Jacob and Esau, the twins born to Isaac and Rebecca, is vividly conjured in this week’s parshah. While Jacob was a simple man, content to stay inside, Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors. Whereas Jacob was smooth, the ruddy Esau was covered in hair. Most poignantly, the brothers …
Read MoreAmong the several firsts of this week’s parshah are cruelty and violence, introduced into the human story by Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. As depraved as it is, Cain’s sin seems only to grow, to expand from violent rage into genuine cruelty when we hear his response to God’s haunting question, “Where is Abel, …
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