“I Will Go to the Mountain of Myrrh”
Apr 10, 2015 By Barbara Mann | Commentary | Pesah
The Song of Songs is an essential text for modern Hebrew culture, and was perhaps the most beloved biblical book of modernist authors such as S. Y. Agnon and artists such as Ze’ev Raban (1890–1970). Hebrew fiction writers and poets in Palestine in the interwar period plumbed the Song for its extensive lexicon describing the body and the landscape, and its sensitive depiction of psychological and sexual drama. Their modern descriptions of the land before them were often rendered in terms that recalled the erotic interiors and pastoral domain of the Song. Raban taught at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and his Jugendstil (German Art Nouveau) illustrations of the Song of Songs (1923) are an exemplary cultural product of their time.
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“Echad Mi Yodea” (“Who Knows One?”)
Apr 2, 2015 By Sarah Diamant | Commentary | Pesah
“Echad Mi Yodea” is a traditional cumulative-number song found in the Haggadah. Each verse circles back to the Oneness of God.
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The Light of Passover
Mar 25, 2013 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Pesah
Why did the Rabbis use the word light when they intended darkness? The Hebrew word leila (לילה) would certainly have worked. Why did the Rabbis not say what they meant?
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Elijah’s Cup: A Time For Family Reunion
Apr 8, 2014 By Daniel Nevins | Short Video | Pesah
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