Rabbi Bruce Kadden

Almost 25 years after God calls Abram to leave his home in Mesopotamia and go to the land of Canaan, God formally establishes a covenant with him (Genesis 17:4ff.). Like that established with Noah, his descendants, and all living beings (9:8ff.), it is unconditional, everlasting, includes blessings and promises, and carries with it a sign decided upon by God. However, unlike the rainbow, placed in the clouds and passively received by humanity, the sign of God's covenant with Abraham — male circumcision — is something with which Abram and his descendants, not God, are entrusted. They are to circumcise their sons and other male children in their household on the eighth day after birth as a physical sign of the covenant. The punishment for failing to do so is severe. "An uncircumcised male who has not circumcised the flesh of his foreskin," says God, " … shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant" (17:14).

Are there any more moving words in the entire Torah than the question Joseph asks immediately upon revealing his identity to his brothers: "Is my father [really] alive?" (Genesis 45:3). After many years of denying his identity, hiding his identity, and trying to forget his past, he cannot contain himself

There are sections of the Torah that call out for our attention just from the way they are written in the sefer Torah, the Torah scroll, itself. The most famous are the enlarged letter bet of the first word of the Torah, B’reishit, “In the beginning,” and the two enlarged

There are sections of the Torah that call out for our attention just from the way they are written in the sefer Torah, the Torah scroll, itself. The most famous are the enlarged letter bet of the first word of the Torah, B’reishit, “In the beginning,” and the two enlarged

Elie Wiesel has written, "In Jewish history, a name has its own history and its own memory. It connects beings with their origins. To retrace its path is then to embark on an adventure in which the destiny of a single word becomes one with that of a community; it