Posted by Navah on Jan 8, 2024 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Yoseph was the first Israelite to become enslaved. In the issue of who sold Yoseph to slavery, there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that it was his brothers who sold him, for the Torah appears to blame the sale of Yoseph to slavery to them, based on Yoseph’s accusations of having sold him to Egypt in Gen 45:4. The story of Yoseph’s troubles began with Ya’akov sending Yoseph to visit his brothers who attended their father’s sheep. Careful...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 27, 2023 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Rachel and Leah engaged in a difficult contest for the heart of their husband Ya’akov and for the position of first wife in the family. In the article Leah—The Mother of the Covenant Nation, we present to the reader the story of rivalry between the sisters from Leah’s point of view. The story of wife who felt unloved and unwanted. It would be therefore advantageous for the reader to study what we have said in that article. In the following continuation of the...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 7, 2023 in The Patriarchs' Saga
After the victorious war against the four kings, Avram returned with his men and the booty of war. Malki-tsedek king of Shalem and the priest of the Most High Elohim met Avram with bread and wine and blessed him. Avram’s soldiers took for themselves their portion of the booty, and the rest Avram returned to the king of Sodom except for the captives, whom Avram freed. Traditional Christian commentators offer the interpretation that Avram gave Malki-tsedek, the priest of the...
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Posted by Navah on Oct 30, 2023 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The reported death toll of the Hamas terrorist invasion is more than 1,400 Israelis. The Americans who died on 11 September 2001, at the World Trade Center were less than 3,000. The death of the Israelis is proportional to about 48,300 Americans. In this war of revenge against the sadistic Hamas (Chamas, Hebrew for “violence”), Israel has the goal of a total annihilation of the terrorism in Gaza and the liberation of the hundreds of hostages held by the...
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Posted by Navah on Mar 19, 2023 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The proper form of sexuality is the source of life, and nothing is more intimate than the sexual act between a husband and a wife. When the intimacy between a husband and a wife is abused or misused, nothing can be more destructive to the human soul, family, and society than the degradation of a wife in the abomination of sexual immorality of polygamy: the society will break too, sooner or later. It is inevitable. Adultery and fornication of both man and woman are seen as...
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Posted by Navah on Dec 4, 2022 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Did Ya’akov hate his wife, Leah? It appears so, when we read the verse which clearly says that YHVH saw that Leah was hated. But was she indeed hated by her husband Ya’akov? For the purpose of this study, we will focus on a single verse in Genesis 29 which indeed says that Leah was hated. In the following, however, we will argue that Ya’akov did not hate Leah, on the contrary, he loved her. By this we will not question the credibility of the Torah, let it...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 20, 2022 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The Hebrew Bible has the miraculous stories of six barren women, their conception, and giving birth to male children. We will address them in the following vein and offer another one for the reader’s consideration, as we will explain the reason for this in due course. There is a well-established Rabbinic tradition that the conception of Yitschak the son of Avraham was entirely by way of promise, not natural. His miraculous conception and birth, however, are not unique to...
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Posted by Navah on Oct 16, 2022 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Much is known of the involvement of the tribe of Levi in the Temple service and reverence for YHVH. Traditional commentators offer extended explanations of the Levites’ role in the Temple, but very little of Binyamin and the sanctuary. In the following, we would like to posit another way to look at the youngest son of the patriarch, Binyamin, and specifically in reference to his merit to have the Temple built on the land of his tribe. We will explore the connection of...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 28, 2021 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The patriarch Ya’akov had now entered upon his father’s inheritance after his return from Mesopotamia, and the narrator of our story felt the necessity to begin with the genealogy of Ya’akov telling us know that his son Yoseph was seventeen years old. This strange beginning of the narrative with Ya’akov’s favorite son and especially with the notice of his age is introduced here with reference to the principal topic in the story: the sale of...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 22, 2021 in The Patriarchs' Saga
Great Britain governed Palestine from 1922 until 1947. Since 1922, Jewish immigration to Palestine had increased, and therefore the tensions between Arabs and Jews to become the most contested piece of land. While the European Jewry and the Jews in Palestine supported the war against the Nazi Germany and even participated in it, the Arabs openly lined up with Hitler and more particularly for the extermination of all Jews in Palestine. At that time, the term...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 14, 2021 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The inheritance tensions were central to the development of Israel as a nation. First, we witnessed Avraham’s concerns that he would remain childless and his trusted servant Eliezer would inherit him, despite the Covenant YHVH made with Avraham. Then, the strife between Avraham’s wife Sarah and her maidservant: Who would be the matriarch of the family, and who would inherit Avraham: Ishmael or Yitschak. By sending away Ishmael, Sarah secured the line of...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 8, 2021 in The Patriarchs' Saga
The motive of a mother advocating on behalf of her son is found in two biblical stories of the matriarchs of the nation of Israel. After Yitschak was molested by Ishmael, Sarah urged Avraham to send Hagar away along with her son, so only her son Yitschak would inherit, according to the promise. After Sarah’s ultimatum that Hagar and her son be expelled, Avraham became grieved, but YHVH advised him to listen to his wife. Rivkah, the new matriarch of the family, too...
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