A Quick Torah Thought

 A rather banal question bothered me in this past week's parsha: Why did God kill the firstborn animals in the plague afflicting human firstborns? In essence, what I am asking is why was it necessary to kill the firstborn animals – was it not enough to have bloodcurdling cries and screams in every home, without exception? What added value, thus, was gleaned by the death of firstborn animals? I asked a friend, Yehezkel Hojesta that question just minutes ago, and he asked a perhaps better question: Why were the firstborn Egyptians killed, to begin with? What wrong did they do? In so far as I understand, his question is very pertinent, because until that point, it would seem that nobody was killed except for those who actively chose to diverge from the will of God. In the plague of hail, enormous frozen hail mixed with fire, those who did not fear God left their slaves, and animals outside to perish. At that time, slaves were no more than property, and thus, prior to the plague ...

So many of the relationships we have in our lives can be characterized as "bicephalous." I first heard that word in a political science class; France's governance is bicephalou s in that both the Prime Minister and President have distinctly marked responsibilities, and were the two to come from different political parties, or factions, it inevitably leads to friction, and difficulties in governance. Two-headedness can be dangerous, or even a recipe for disaster, in any matrix or hierarchy where power is shared.  A husband who is as equally dominant as his wife, or vice versa, two chairmen who share power equally, two heads of state - each with veto power - or a head of armed forces who makes short shrift of the directives of the Minister of Defense are true and tried examples of such situations where the dynamics can be rife with tension.  What then, is the secret, for managing, or finessing such a complicated situation? It is one we face regularly, where two people with ...

I once heard it said: "If you accept every Medrash at face value, you are an ignoramus, if you deny them in their entirety you are no more than a fool."  This week's parsha offers a medrash that is so quintessentially beautiful that I believe it offers an insight into how the world of medrash functions. The medrash is a mode of textual interpretation that often embelishes the text, adding richness of detail, exegesis that makes the text more palpable - and alive - for the everyday reader.  The medrash states on this week's parsha that the seeds of redemption were implanted in the names of Yaakov's sons. Everybody knows that the sons were given symbolic names based on the localized events of the times, Rachel's aspirations, Leah's hopes, and both of their desires for a stronger - and more cohesive bond - with Yaakov, wedded to the destiny of the Jewish people. Each sought their place, and wanted to have a more vital role, either quantitatively, or qualitati...

One of the themes the book of Bereishit clearly dabbles in is determinism. No doubt about that!  The question is, "What is the final message being made, or conveyed?" The fulcrum or pivot-point in the whole of the book is whether or not the firstborn will gain primacy in the last match, in the showdown. Call it Messi v. Mbappé, or what you will, but does the party with everything going for him, with all the rights to victory, get it at the end of the day?  It would seem that there's a clear undercurrent from one faceoff to the next - from Yitzhak to Yishmael, Yaakov to Eisav, Yosef, Reuven and Yehudah, and Efraim and Menashe, that the one who's caught sleeping loses. Spirituality, like in sports, cannot be taken for granted. The Vikings (I admit, I know nothing about football but the headlines were so sensational that I couldn't help but peek) came back from 33-0, to beat the Colts just a month ago. So, in essence, the message in Bereishit seems to be that the und...

One of the most spellbinding questions in the give and take between Reuven, Judah, and the other brothers is whether they actually felt bad about having sold Joseph? Is there any indication whatsoever, at any point, that they felt that they had done the wrong thing? I think that the simple answer is "No."  And, were they to have had to have made the choice, they would have done it again. And that, is a sadder reality than almost anything else - which is why, when Yaakov passes, the brothers come to Joseph and say that their father had instructed them to cajole Joseph into forgiving them on his behalf.  It is an anti-climax of the greatest proportions; essentially, they themselves have never reached closure amongst themselves, which hearkens back to the earlier question, "Why was it that they sold Joseph?" Having seen him as a mortal threat - feeling that they would be evolutionarily disposed of as were Yishmael and Eisav - they felt that he, Joseph, the manipulative...