This monthly essay is meant to cover a month's worth of weekly Torah portions, and it usually does. In this case, that ought to be from the beginning of the narratives about the life of Abraham and ...

The story in Genesis of Abraham’s willingness to kill his son Isaac at God’s command still gets a lot of attention. But it doesn’t get a lot of love. In every broadside against religion, God’s ...

He (God) said (to Abraham), “Take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac, and walk yourself to the land of Moriah and offer him up as a whole burnt offering…” Gen. 22 Had Tolstoy or James or ...

Every year about this time, the story of God testing Abraham comes up. You remember the story: Abraham takes Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, and at the last minute a ram enters the picture ...

In Jewish tradition, the principle Ma’aseh Avot Siman LaBanim — “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children” — teaches that the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs are more than ...

At the very end of Parshat Chayei Sarah — after the death of Sarah and her burial in the Cave of Machpelah, the achuzat kever, the covenantal heritage land-hold — there is a curious verse, seemingly a ...