Words Create Worlds

Words Create Worlds

Nov 9, 2002 By Lauren Eichler Berkun | Commentary | Toledot

This week’s Torah portion gives us a powerful, albeit troubling, reminder of the power of words. Jacob tricks his blind father Isaac into giving him the blessing reserved for the first-born son. Once the deception is unveiled, and Esau stands before Isaac with great expectation, the Torah paints a poignant picture of the devastating consequences of Isaac’s words.

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Searching for Signs

Searching for Signs

Oct 5, 2010 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Toledot

This week’s Torah portion contains an ambiguity that is rarely noted, and yet it is crucial to how we understand the contest between Rebecca and Isaac. When Rebecca experiences the as yet unborn children struggling, indeed almost crushing each other, she goes “to seek God”—whatever that may mean. She is told that two nations will emerge from her womb, two nations that will contend with each other and, the divine response concludes, “ve-rav ya’avod za’ir.

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Angel Tears

Angel Tears

Oct 6, 2010 By Andrew Shugerman | Commentary | Toledot

Many centuries before the advent of modern medicine in general and care for mental health in particular, our Sages developed the symbolic language of angels’ tears to explain the hidden wounds impressed upon Isaac’s psyche in the aftermath of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. Today, one finds myriad psychological interpretations of his near-death experience at the hands of his father, Abraham. In fact, a trend has emerged in Israeli poetry over the last few decades: reexamining the Akedah as a paradigm for understanding the role of trauma and fear in contemporary Jewish life.

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Our Lying Patriarch

Our Lying Patriarch

Oct 21, 2009 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Toledot

The evidence stared at us: a hot pink eye embedded in dark skin. “Which one of you did this?” my mother demanded. I, of course, knew the secret, having mashed the Bubbilicious bubble gum into a crack in the dark-stained paneling of our family room some hours earlier. My little sister, trying to be helpful, asked with what I knew to be complete innocence: “Well, what kind of gum is it?” Which was all our mother needed to hear to jump to a conclusion that brought her investigation to its end and my sister to her inevitable reprimand.

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The Challenge of Tomorrow’s Blessing

The Challenge of Tomorrow’s Blessing

Oct 29, 2013 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Toledot

Parashat Toledot opens in life and closes with the threat of death.

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Wellsprings of Hope

Wellsprings of Hope

Nov 14, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Toledot

As famine envelops the Land of Israel, Isaac seeks refuge in the territory of the Philistines.

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Making God More Than a Footnote

Making God More Than a Footnote

Dec 3, 2005 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Toledot

The process of seeking God within Judaism is one that is done through patience and mindfulness.

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Finding Our Way (and God’s) in the World

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’s strength has dreadful consequences.

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