Parashat Tazria: Explaining Tzora’at From the Perspective of the Book of Job by Yaakov Bieler

Laws of ritual purity and impurity elude logical explanations.                 Tora laws of ritual purity and impurity e.g., rules that are associated with contact with dead bodies,[1]  particular bodily excretions,[2]   and various dermatological conditions[3]  are categorized as Chukim (statutes),  i.e., laws which, at best, have rationales that are highly obscure.[4] Yet even more curious and [...]

Parashat Vayigash: Was Yosef’s Economic Policy Also a Social Policy? by Yaakov Bieler

                Once the years of plenty in Egypt, that were predicted in Pharoah’s two dreams (Beraishit  41:1-7, 25-32), are concluded, the years of famine begin (41:54). Not only does the lack of food affect the surrounding areas, including Canaan, but the residents of Egypt proper starve as well (41:55). While the measures imposed by Yosef [...]

Parshat VaYetze: What’s in a Name? by Yaakov Bieler

It appears that, according to the Bible, the connotations and associations of the name that either a parent or God Himself bestows upon a particular child or adult, could play a major role in the individual’s personality development and sense of self.   Names that are positive and optimistic be readily understood to signify the hopes [...]

Parashat Noach: Stealth Tora Teachers – The Yeshiva of Shem and Ever by Yaakov Bieler

                The Yeshiva and/or Beit Midrash has been the institution in which Tora has been formally transmitted from teacher to student, from generation to generation, as well as the context in which students of Tora have conducted their religious studies for time immemorial.  While it is both plausible and understandable to find historical and literary [...]

Parashat Beraishit: The Challenge of Free Will – From One Firstborn to Another by Yaakov Bieler

While the Parsha of Beraishit contains many well-known, seminal stories with respect to the universal human condition,[1] the verse to which I find myself being drawn year after year, is Beraishit 4:7. After Kayin (Cain) is crestfallen as a result of his younger brother Hevel’s (Abel) sacrifice being divinely accepted, while his own is rejected, [...]

Abrabanel & The Menora: An Early Interpretation Supporting the Concept of Tora U’Madda by Yaakov Bieler

              The latter Tora portions of the book of Shemot, with the exception of Ki Tisa, focus upon the construction of the Tabernacle and the fabrication of the ritual clothing worn by the priests when they were performing the Temple service. Most commentators are hard-pressed to derive rigorously argued, logical spiritual instruction from this quantitatively [...]