A word in Hebrew: Nichush. In modern Hebrew, it means “to guess.” This is distantly related to what it means in the Chumash. The Torah forbids one to follow signs, as in trying to divine the future. One is not allowed to say, “if a bird chirps outside my window in the morning, then I’ll sell all of my stocks.”
There are those who say that Nichush is what...Read more...
Every year, sometimes at this time of year but not necessarily, there appears an exposition of the life of Avraham Avinu in which he’s a mess up. Rather than the man Kierkegaard called the Knight of Faith, he’s a failure. It can be that he mishandled his wife in Egypt, or that he was too cruel to Yishmael and Hagar, or that the Akeida is a fiasco.
In 2000, the Shabbat before the election was also Parashat Noach. It wasn’t Rosh Chodesh, so the Haftora was the regular one for the Parasha. At Seuda Shlishit, someone pointed out that there was a verse that began, “Hen Gor.” It wasn’t a statement, it was just the beginning of a sentence, “Hen Gor Yagur,” but the two words say, “yes, Gore.” That was the end of such predictions for a...Read more...
We begin to learn Bereisheet again immediately after finishing V’Zot HaBeracha. The eagerness to learn is not because we’re eager to memorize. It’s because we’re confident that we have not yet exhausted the text. We know it will still surprise us with things we have never noticed no matter how many times we go through it.
We read in Haazinu a few weeks ago, Ki Lo Devar Reik...Read more...
