Posted by Navah on Jan 22, 2025 in Bible Study
There is a passage in Matthew 8 that always perplexes a sensitive reader who tends to read the Scripture carefully. Moreover, it is extremely confusing, when we look only at what has been revealed to us in the narration. We need to resort to the Torah to make better sense of this short episode in the Apostolic Writings. It is the object of this work, therefore, to explain what is not satisfactorily explained by the commentators and expose certain misconceptions that still...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Jan 19, 2025 in The Exodus
The scroll of Genesis concludes with the death of the last patriarch, Ya’akov, and then by relates that Yoseph saw Ephrayim’s children to the third generation (Gen 50:23). But it does not tell anything about his brothers except that they were few in number when they descended to Egypt: only seventy souls including their father Ya’akov. Their fate however is revealed to the reader in the scroll of Exodus, which begins with listing their names again as in Chapter...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Jan 11, 2025 in The Patriarchs' Saga
After Yoseph was sold in slavery and spent many years first as a slave and then in a prison accused unjustly, he rose to power in Egypt to become only second to Pharoah; he became the viceroy of Egypt. And Yoseph changed. Away from home and family, he was no longer the favored son of his father, who was reporting his brothers. In his encounter with his brothers, who came down to Egypt to buy grain on account of the famine in the land of Kana’an, he learned that his...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Jan 5, 2025 in The Exiles, The Patriarchs' Saga
Yoseph administered Egypt during the seven years of famine, which are interrupted in order to describe how his family came to settle in Egypt. In the first year of the famine, there was no bread in the entire country, since the famine was very severe and all the grain that they had set aside as a reserve during the seven years of plenty had gone. And because the people languished due to the famine, Yoseph opened the granaries of Egypt. In Gen. 47:13-27, we learn that Yoseph...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Jan 4, 2025 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Yoseph was sold in Egypt as a slave. But the Elohim of his father was with him and did not abandon him as his brothers did. Now raised to the highest rank in Egypt, only second to Pharaoh himself, Yoseph could set his thought on his family in the land of Kana’an. On account of the famine that was throughout the whole land, his brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain, for grain could be found only in Egypt. Yoseph was expecting them to come for the famine was very great....
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Dec 25, 2024 in The Messiah
Psalm 2 is written as a psalm without a heading in honor of a particular king. Its content and visionary language indicate that it is not describing a specific king but rather depicts a prophetic vision of the future redeemer, Melech haMashiach, King Messiah, as it is written: “This day I have brought you forth”. The psalmist penned his Psalm as a mirrored picture of what he saw and as an echo of what he heard. In the prophecy given through Natan the prophet...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Dec 20, 2024 in The Patriarchs' Saga
No matter how we will read the narratives of Ya’akov and Yoseph, we still will not know the entire story. And the story reads well until we start reading it carefully. Then, several questions start presenting themselves to the careful reader. And the Yoseph story begins in Genesis 37, wherein we learn that his father, Ya’akov, moved to the land of Kana’an, the land of his father, as we read, These are the generations of Ya’akov. Yoseph, being...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Dec 10, 2024 in The Exiles, The Patriarchs' Saga
Why did the Eternal move Israel and his family from the land of Kana’an to Egypt? The reason why Israel moved to Egypt, which turned to slavery, is not explicitly stated in the Torah. Was it an exile and if so, why? We have the reason to believe that it was an exile but why? Because of the famine? In the issue of famine in the entire land, there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that it caused the relocation of Israel to Egypt, where there was plenty of food. And...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Nov 30, 2024 in The Patriarchs' Saga
No one in his proper mind would agree that a person can wound someone else in order to save his/her own life. Then, why in a “civilized” society like ours can a pregnant woman wound her baby for the sake of “improving” her own health? Because abortion is a matter of “healthcare”, and a baby is a mere part of the mother’s body through the umbilical cord? The liberal culture claims that a fetus is not a conscious being and can...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Nov 24, 2024 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The Eternal told Avraham to leave his homeland and to go to an unknown land he would inherit. He promised Avraham to make him a father of many nations, innumerous as the stars. But as Avraham entered the promised land, he was wandering childless for twenty-four years. Then, Avraham was promised he would have a son, only one son. A year later Yitschak the promised son was born. At the age of thirty-seven, Yitschak was still childless, not even married, when the Eternal...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Nov 18, 2024 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The request from the Eternal to Avraham to bring up his son on the mountain and sacrifice him there comes out of nowhere. Why? For the Eternal said to him with a promise: “For it is through Yitschak that will be called your descendants” (Genesis 21:12). But then He said: “Take your son …and bring him up” (Genesis 22:2). And now it was said to Avraham: “Do not extend your hand against the lad. Do not touch him”. We wonder though! Our question concerning this is: Did the...
Read More »
Posted by Navah on Nov 13, 2024 in Sanctity of life
In his monumental work Kohelet, King Sh’lomoh seeks to describe how man, having reached his old age (Ecc 12:1), is returning to his everlasting home (Ecc 12:5) where he had come from. The old man’s mind begins to darken, as the autumn of his life with clouds and rains is approaching (Ecc 12:2), all as a description of human life coming to an end. The dissolution of the life by which the separation of soul and body and the return of the soul to the Creator is...
Read More »
