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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Posted by Navah on Nov 5, 2024 in The Origin
The whole narrative in Genesis 6 concerning the building of the ark seems quite simple and easy to understand, when we read only at what has been revealed to us on the surface. But the Hebrew text draws attention with its peculiarities and raises questions for whose answers we need to resort to the writings of the Sages to make better sense of what is meant in the narrative. We will show that the question of the design of the ark Noach built is far from being trivial and...
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Posted by Navah on Oct 31, 2024 in The Origin
There is no free choice, if one cannot exercise his free will. Each man lives by his free will. Had Adam and Chavah not been endowed with free choice, they never could have defied the Creator’s will not to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil. He therefore had to resort to a plan to make them desire to eat from it to test their faith. He achieved this by using the personification of evil inclination without interfering with their basic freedom of choice. Everything is...
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Posted by Navah on Oct 15, 2024 in Oneness of the Creator
The Creator created man in His image. He formed all the limbs and organs of man corresponding to the Supernal conducts: the Creator’s actions manifested in the creation and sovereignty. Man’s souls, as we explained elsewhere, are sparks of the Eternal which have their seats in certain places in the human body. Claiming that “God had become a man” is nothing less than creating a god in an image of man. This is a pure form of idolatry. It should not enter one’s mind that the...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 29, 2024 in Bible Study
According to Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon, aka Maimonides, the sacrifices have no intrinsic value in the Temple service. They are part of a legal procedures, which do not benefit the Eternal but humans, for nothing that men do has an effect on Him. But what men do can affect others. And the Eternal does not look at what is offered but rather who offers it. Thus, the Torah concept of charity differs greatly from the world notion of it. When gentiles give, they see charity as a...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 22, 2024 in The Messiah
It is very difficult to imagine the picture which floated in Mosheh’s mind, when he urged the people to await a prophet like him, for he is speaking of a future state but in images drawn from his current world. What was in his mind when he uttered these words? And whose words were they indeed? It is the object of this work to seek the answers to these questions, as we will present to the readers a new approach so that they can have the confidence to delve into the meaning...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 15, 2024 in Hebrew Study
It is the object of this work to explain the Hebrew words for “prophet” and “prophecy”. Usually, when people talk of a prophet, it is meant a chosen person who divines the future, and of a prophecy: knowledge of the future said to be obtained from a divine source, i.e., a deity. But the Hebraic concept of prophet and prophecy should not be confused with the divination or fortunetelling found among the nations. So, who is a prophet, and what a prophet...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 8, 2024 in Prophecy Insight
Prophecies often address existing sins necessitating urgent either-or choices in case of crises. Crises make people choose. When people choose, they take sides. When they take sides, they face the dilemma to do the will of their Maker or their own will. The Supernal One sets everyone in a situation to make a choice; His prophets included: whether they will speak His words or their own words. But the truth of a prophet’s word could only be determined after an event has come...
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Posted by Navah on Sep 2, 2024 in Hebrew Study
The children of Israel did not believe in Mosheh because of the signs and wonders he performed in Egypt and in the desert. Indeed, one who believes because of miracles can be easily deceived, since a “miracle” can be done by trickery or sorcery. Rather, all the miracles Mosheh performed were by necessity, not to prove or legitimize his prophecy. It was necessary to turn the staff into a snake and do all ten plagues upon Egypt, because Pharaoh did not let people go. It was...
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