A Quick Torah Thought

I was once at the Shabbat table of the dayan and rabbi of Kol Rina, Rabbi Baruch Rubanowitz, and he asked a fascinating question:  When Jacob gathered his wives in the field to ask them about absconding from Lavan's home, why doesn't he share the vision, or prophecy he had where Hashem explicitly told him to leave Lavan's home and return to Beit El to fulfill his promise of offering a sacrifice in gratitude for Hashem's protection? Why does he make no mention of the fact that Hashem has explicitly commanded him to leave?  A fascinating question.  At the time, in response, I shared that Hashem's command is extraneous if one's logical senses bring one to the very same conclusion. Not infrequently the Talmud teaches, "Why bring a verse (fancy word - exegesis)? It's common sense!" I now find myself remembering that I once said to my grandfather, Moshe Barth Z"L, "Common sense isn't so common," and he smiled and laughed and said, ...

It is hard to overcome the stereotype of Isaac as a man of passivity. He was literally bound, inches before being slaughtered in the name of God. Likewise, he didn't seek his own wife, but she was found on his behalf. The wells he dug, initially, were those dug by Abraham's servants. Even the names he gave them were identical to those chosen by Abraham.  Yet, at one point in the parsha, Issac starts out on his own. He tries to dig his own wells - but meets similar failure. The same squabbles he had when he undug Abraham's wells, resumed when he dug his own. The first he named contention, the second harrassment. That was his experience starting out on his own. What a dreadful experience! And yet, what does he do? He relocates. The same way Abraham employs this stratagem (Bereishit 12:8) - like the sages teach us, Meshane makom meshaneh mazal ("One's fate can change in a new place."), Isaac decides to not give up. He doesn't give up his fight for the land, n...

What a perplexing name! "The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me."  It sounds like it comes out of the Disney movie, "Pocahontas," like Grandmother Willow's sage advice, "Listen with your heart, you will understand." This very well, though, became a critical one, permeating and weaving itself through the very history of our people.  Ironically, it became the source of inspiration for Yishmael nemesis, Yitzhak. It was this very well that the angel revealed to Hagar which she used to save Yishmael, and then, when Yitzhak has gone to meditate in the field before meeting his beloved, Rivka, he comes from his dwelling place in the Negev, or South, and having just left that very well, "The Well of the Living One who Sees Me."  It seems like it wasn't only Hagar that the angel saw, but also Yishmael, and also, the very vein of history coursing through the waters that emanated from the spring that fed the well.  And then, finally, after Avraham pa...

We all as parents try to avoid preferential treatment towards any one child. Yet, it can be very taxing, and daunting, and even impossible.  Avraham Avinu tried as hard as anyone, and succeeded to the point, where God had to put him in place, right his course and even instruct him to banish his oldest from his home.  In biblical times there was a notion that to be the mother of a child, you didn't actually have to give birth to him or her. A maidservant's son was that of the woman who gave her to the master. Thus, for all intents and purposes, Yishmael was to be Sarah Imenu's son - but, and this comes with a big qualification, he didn't because Hagar, his mother looked at Sarah dismissively after having conceived, at which point, Sarah wrongfully felt she had no choice but to subjugate her through affliction.  That affliction led to her absconding; she was pregnant with child, but miscarried, hinted at by the fact that the angel who came to intercede needed to tell her ...

Reports had filtered down that conflict was brewing between his shepherds and those of Lot. Abraham lost no time.  He said to Lot point blank, it's you or me, take your pick! Whatever way you choose, I'll take the other. You split the cookie, and choose first. Whatever you choose, I want out.  Lot made no attempt at reconciliation; he wanted to start out on his own, maybe like an entrepreneur charting his own course. But, before you knew it, his sprawling encampment bordered on that of Sodom, and presumably, in the tribal period of that time, he simply needed protection; the same way Abraham, our forefather, on coming to the Land of Canaan, needed to make pacts with the locals, Eshkol and Aner, his allies who fought with him to retrieve Lot after he was captured, Lot also sought protection. And so, he made a pact with the devil, becoming an integral part of the most wicked society of the time, known for its inhospitability and draconian ways to the point where it became one of...