This week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, is replete with conflicts and tensions which Jacob and his family need to urgently address. It opens with the news that Esau is coming forward to meet Jacob bringing with himself four hundred men. Worried that Esau will want to take revenge on his loved ones for stealing his birthright, […]

Angels climbing up and down the ladder that symbolise Jacob’s special connection to the Eternal. Jacob being tricked into marrying Leah instead of his beloved Rachel. The births of eleven out of twelve sons of Jacob. The tragedy of Jacob’s only (known) daughter, Dinah. These are the things that come to our minds when we […]

If there ever was a ‘Patriarch Cup’ of popularity among Abraham, Isaac, Jakob and Joseph, four most prominent male characters in the book of Genesis, Isaac would be bound to land in fourth place. Sounds controversial? Let’s consider it for a moment. When we think about other patriarchs, we immediately remember stories of amazing or, […]

Thoughts on Parashat Vayera

A lot of our political and cultural debate today pertains to societal norms. However, I believe that, in our times, there is a common confusion about the nature and purpose of societal norms. Therefore, I need to make some statements that sound quite obvious for many of us: the societal norms have not been created to indulge the individuals; they have been always to serve the society, as a whole, to facilitate its survival, reproduction, demographic and cultural growth as[…]

Thoughts on Parashat Lech Lecha

This week’s Torah begins with God’s act of choosing Abram as the Divine servant:

יהוה said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.[…]

Thoughts on Parashat Noach

The story contained in our Torah portion for this week can be seen as a metaphor of a great catastrophe in which species were decimated or doomed to total extinction… Only a few of them were to survive, a few individuals of each gender, in order to reproduce and prevent the animal life cycle on the earth from a complete extinction. Does it sound completely unreal today?[…]