Prolepsis: How the Bible Tells Us the Future
Oct 31, 2012 By David Marcus | Commentary | Vayera
Regular screen watchers know that if in an opening scene the camera pans in on a detail like a dagger or a bicycle, then that detail鈥攖he dagger or the bicycle鈥攚ill somehow have an important role to play later on in the movie. Known as foreshadowing, this cinematic technique has its parallel in literature in the rhetorical device known as prolepsis, which indicates a future event that is presumed to have occurred.
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The Power of Words
Nov 7, 2012 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Hayyei Sarah
Where Sarah and Ishmael seem to fade from the scene, Abraham actively prepares for his death. The details of the burial of Sarah and finding a wife for Isaac that occupy the parashah rest in stark contrast to the death narratives of both Abraham鈥檚 wife and firstborn son.
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Finding Our Way (and God’s) in the World
Nov 13, 2012 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Toledot
What do you make of our matriarch Rebecca? Certainly she is the boldest and most independent of the mothers. Yet Rebecca鈥檚 strength has dreadful consequences.
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Assumptions and Appearances
Nov 28, 2012 By Nancy Abramson | Commentary | Vayishlah
Things are not always as they appear to be. And when assumptions are based on circumstantial or incomplete evidence, we are often surprised or disappointed by what unfolds.
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Forgetting to Remember for Posterity
Dec 5, 2012 By Rabbi Abigail Treu | Commentary | Vayeshev
Remember the Sabbath day. Remember what Amalek did to you in the wilderness. Remember what God did to Miriam. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. Memory is integral to our identities as Jews and as individuals. What happens when we lose our memories, or our ability to remember altogether?
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Holy Innovation and the Festival of Hanukkah
Dec 11, 2012 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Hanukkah
What is the essential message of Hanukkah, the beloved Festival of Lights? Like many of our holidays, this celebration is protean, shifting shape to accommodate our changing Jewish needs.
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It鈥檚 Not What You Say . . .
Dec 19, 2012 By Deborah Miller | Commentary | Vayehi
We have learned that two trees do not make a pattern鈥攊t takes three. So we have to look at a series of events in order to learn about Jacob. What can we discern?
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Unanticipated Consequences
Dec 19, 2012 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Vayiggash
Joseph鈥檚 brothers got very lucky. What started as an act of malice inspired by jealousy and spite turned out to secure the future of the Jewish People. Did they imagine the implications of their action? Did Joseph鈥檚 brothers know that their initial plot of murder and their eventual sale of Joseph into slavery would ultimately save their own lives? No, they did not.
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