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Parasha Vayetze (And He Left): Jacob’s Journey of Faith

Jacob's Dream, by José de Ribera

Jacob was not a rough and tough adventurer like his brother, Esau. He had a quiet personality from birth, preferring to be at home with his mother rather than out in the woods hunting for game. So, the call to leave his home for another land (like his grandfather Abraham, and his father Isaac) may have given him much anxiety. Perhaps doubly so since this trip arose from his mother’s desire to protect his life from his brother’s rage. On the other hand, Jacob had just received an extraordinary blessing from his father Isaac of “heaven’s dew and earth’s richness, an abundance of grain and new wine” with a promise of nations serving and bowing down to him (Genesis 27:28–29).

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Parasha Bamidbar (In the Wilderness): Does God Ordain Suffering?

Torah-Western-Wall

The Haftarah (prophetic portion) promises that God will allure Israel, bring her back to the Land, and that the relationship between God and Israel would be, once again, like a healthy marriage. To understand the themes of marriage, betrayal and redemption in Hosea, we must understand Hosea’s situation. God instructed him to take a harlot for a wife—a woman who was seemingly destined to be unfaithful to him. The rabbis, in fact, believe that Hosea’s resulting domestic tragedy was actually ordained by God

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