This week, for anyone who's been wondering what the heck this podcast is all about, we take the opportunity to give a general introduction to the whole genre of "parshanut."
There's some wild, far-out stuff in the Torah. But this week, things get especially crazy when we run into a bunch of... talking rocks! Now, are we really supposed to believe this stuff? That's the big question we try to tackle this week, with some help from a great 16th-century philosopher, Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague.
This week, we reexamine a famous piece of midrash - a story of angels crying - in search of a better understanding of what drives Isaac, the most silent and mysterious of our forefathers.
There is a principle in rabbinic interpretation my friend calls "The Economy of Characters," which takes two separate figures in the Torah and folds them into one. This week, we look at how this works in one story in our parsha, the marriage of Abraham, in his old-age, to a woman (seemingly) named "Keturah.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is horrifying for all kinds of reasons. But the worst of it is what Lot does to his daughters. Why does he do it? Where did he get the idea?
The answer may surprise you.
How can the Egyptians be held responsible for forcing the Israelites into slavery if God set this all in motion hundreds of years earlier? Two great Medieval rabbis debate this question, and their answers give us two very different ways of thinking about history - and participating in it.
This week we look at the story of the Tower of Babel, and ask what it's doing here between the Noah narrative and the introduction to Abraham. We find some surprising interpretations of the project, and some surprising characters in the crowd of builders.
In our inaugural episode, we look at the classic story of the Garden of Eden, to explore a curious detail: the special clothes God makes for Adam and Eve on their way out of paradise.