Minding Your Tent
In our reading from Isaiah today, we encounter God’s message to a childless woman who symbolizes Israel. Israel lost much to war and exile. But now, she is promised to be blessed with many children, so she is told
A Two-Thousand-Year-Old Stone Vessel Factory
A rare workshop for the production of chalkstone vessels, dated to the Roman period, is being excavated and studied at Reina in Lower Galilee. Excavations are unearthing a cave in which archaeologists have found thousands of chalkstone cores and other
Atonement Through Sacrifice and Surrogates
Below is a lecture by Shaye J. D. Cohen, who is a Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. He is a well-known historian who also holds a
Ten Sacrifices offered on Yom Kippur
In Numbers 29, the Torah speaks of sacrifices that should be brought on a very special day, on Yom Kippur. The day is called a day of purification because that is what these sacrifices are supposed to represent. Numbers 7-
God's Desire
In Chapter 6, Prophet Micah asks a question… How should one come before Hashem? Should one come with an olah, a burnt offering, yearling calves? Does God really want thousands of rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Do I
Hearing the Sound of Shofar (~38m)
Leviticus 23:23-25 tells us that on the first day of the seventh month, Israelites are to blow trumpets. This day is called Yom Teruah, "the day of the alarming sound." Besides the proper festival sacrifices, the
"Unheard Wisdom of Hebrew Scribes and Teachers" by Pinchas Shir
The title mentions "unheard wisdom” because the spiritual texts presented in this book are not well known to the masses. Inside are modern, updated, and easy-to-read English translations of four Jewish texts: The Letter of Aristeas, The
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Temple of the Holy Spirit: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
From time to time, I hear beautiful spiritual teachings drawn from the apostolic writings that are sadly misunderstood by modern readers of the New Testament. Misunderstandings repeated often enough eventually harden into “obvious truths,” and over time, they can even
Spiritual Awareness
In Joshua, we learn why a Canaanite prostitute saved the lives of Israelite spies. She saw something many Israelites did not see about themselves. In Joshua 2:9, she said, Ki natan ADONAI lekhem et ha-arretz “Hashem gave you
The Struggle of Darkness and Light (~1.5hrs)
This teaching delves into the ongoing human struggle between the choice to serve God wholeheartedly and the temptation to serve personal ambitions. We follow the story of the Hasmonaean priestly family that led an uprising against Hellenistic oppression in the
Hearing Distant Echoes
I recently published a new book that has been "in the works" for a couple of years. I sat on it for a while because I kept making editorial changes that altered its overall flow. Those who know
Four Rivers and Four Kingdoms
For anyone who follows Middle Eastern politics and history even a little, the cycles of aggression and conflict between different groups in the region never end. Frankly, that is not new. It has been this way ever since the beginning.