"A bit of light pushes away a great deal of darkness." Joseph was sold as a slave to Egypt by his own brothers, marking the beginning of the darkest chapter of his life. As we noted last year, the caravan which brought Joseph to Egypt normally carried odorous...

I remember, more years ago than I care to disclose, traveling to Israel for a summer program of study in a yeshiva (rabbinical school) for the first time. I planned the trip carefully; given that the university I was attending ended its year later than most, there...

Yitzchak (Isaac) calls for Esav (Esau) to receive the blessings reserved for his firstborn son. Following the instructions of his mother Rivka (Rebecca), Yaakov (Jacob) poses as Esav before his blind father, wearing Esav's clothing and disguising his arms to resemble...

It's not enough to "talk the talk;" so we learn from this week's reading. In public, Ephron declared that he would give Avraham the Cave of the Patriarchs for free, but then he expected a massive payment of 400 Centurions (the equivalent of 40,000 silver coins). For...

The Torah uses various names for G-d, and each one expresses a unique manifestation of G-d's interaction with the world. One of the lesser-known names is "Sha-dai." The literal translation of this name is "Who - Enough" which the Sages expand to "The One Who said to...

When Lemech named his new son (at the end of last week's reading, Gen. 5:29), he called the boy "Noach", saying "this shall comfort us (yeNaCHameinu) from our work and the difficult labor of our hands." But the name Noach was prophetic in a different vein, as the name...