OCCUPATION!

A Haftorah is the passage read after the weekly Torah reading. This makes reading Ki Teitzei exceptional. Isaiah 54:1–10, Rani akarah, “Sing, barren woman” makes up the Haftorah for both Ki Teitzei and Noach. Uniquely, no other weekly reading assign the same Haftorah in the same annual cycle. It expressly recalls “the waters of Noach” yet, when Ki Teitzei is read echoes of Noach’s unresolved family catastrophe can be heard; uncontrolled desire, a rejected wife, a disputed son, threatened inheritance, a rebellious son, brothers who must not avert their eyes, a garment, a father’s uncovered cloak, damaged sexual organs and a child of prohibited lineage.

Noach survives the Flood, but his family order does not.  Immediately on disembarkation and repeatedly his son Ham is identified as “the father of Kanaan.” Noach plants a vineyard, becomes drunk and uncovers himself inside his tent. Ham sees his father’s nakedness and tells his brothers. Shem and Japheth take the garment—ha-simlah—walk backwards and cover Noach without looking. When Noach wakes, he knows “what his younger son had done to him,” yet he curses Kanaan and promptly excludes Ham from the blessing bestowed on his brothers. The compressed account leaves two obvious problems: what did Ham do that was more serious than an indecent glance, and why was Kanaan cursed for Ham’s offence?

Rabbinic tradition preserves opinions that Ham castrated or sexually violated Noach; another says Kanaan first saw Noach and informed Ham. A further scholarly interpretation argues that “uncovering a father’s nakedness” means intercourse with the father’s wife. Leviticus 18:7–8 identifies the father’s nakedness with the mother’s, while Deuteronomy 23:1 prohibits taking a father’s wife and “uncovering the corner of the father’s cloak.” On this reading Ham violated Noach through an incestuous union with his mother, and Kanaan was the offspring. This interpretation explains the repeated phrase “Ham, the father of Kanaan,” the gravity of the offence and the direction of the curse.

Ki Teitzei is delivered as Israel prepares to enter the Land and begins: “When you go out to war against your (Kanaanite) enemies.” A soldier sees a beautiful captive woman, desires her and wishes to take her. The Torah prevents instantaneous possession: she must enter his house, be permitted to mourn her parents for a month and then be married or released, never sold. Rashi says the Torah is restraining the evil inclination and reads the following laws as its consequences. The woman taken in passion may become the hated wife; the hated wife may bear the firstborn whose inheritance the father seeks to diminish; the disordered household may produce the ben sorer u’moreh, the stubborn son who rejects his parents and becomes a glutton and drunkard. Desire becomes marriage, marriage becomes rejection, rejection threatens inheritance and uncontrolled passion is transmitted to the next generation.

This is precisely Noach’s final field: wine, sexual exposure, rebellion against a father, the status of a son and the division of inheritance. Ki Teitzei next turns to brotherly responsibility: “You shall not see your brother’s ox or sheep straying and hide yourself from them.” Return his property, bring it into your house, do the same with “his garment”. Ki Teitzei converts the contrast into law: sight does not permit exploitation; brotherhood demands intervention; exposure must be covered and the garment restored.

Then Deuteronomy 23:1–3 places three short laws together: a man must not take his father’s wife or uncover his father’s cloak; a man with crushed testicles or a severed organ may not enter the congregation; a mamzer may not enter the congregation. These correspond with extraordinary precision to the three interpretive problems surrounding Genesis 9: the sexual meaning of the father’s nakedness, the rabbinic castration tradition and Kanaan’s status if born from a prohibited union. A mamzer is not simply a child of unmarried parents; in Jewish law it means the offspring of specified grave unions, including incest. The commentator Rashi says the father’s-cloak prohibition is juxtaposed to the mamzer precisely to identify the forbidden union capable of producing that status. Ki Teitzei supplies the cloak, the injury and the offspring sought within Noach’s compressed narrative.

The dispute then becomes territorial. Psalm 105 remembers God’s covenant with Abraham, His oath to Isaac and its establishment for Jacob-Israel: “To you I shall give the land of Kanaan, the portion of your inheritance,” when Israel’s ancestors were few and strangers in it. The ancient Book of Jubilees makes the occupation explicit. Kanaan sees that the land from Lebanon to the River of Egypt is very good and settles instead in Shem’s portion. Ham, Cush and Mitzrayim warn him, “You have settled in a land which is not yours,” but he refuses; Jubilees says this is why it became known as Kanaan. The Dead Sea Scroll fragment 4Q180–181 preserves a related ancient “land of Shem” tradition, while Rashi reads Noach’s blessing of the God of Shem as the promise that Shem’s descendants would receive the land of Kanaan.

The Kanaanite problem therefore begins, in this interpretive tradition, more than one thousand years before Joshua’s battles and even before Abraham: it begins in Noach’s damaged tent, where sexual boundary, filial rebellion, offspring, blessing and inheritance become one dispute. Israel must not repair that usurpation by reproducing the disorder that caused it. Passion cannot erase the captive woman’s humanity; hatred cannot rewrite a son’s inheritance; a brother cannot see vulnerability and turn away. War does not suspend law; war is where law is most necessary. It is a general warning to Israel whenever power places another person in its hands.

Now the repeated Haftorah becomes clear. Isaiah does not merely mention Noach. It begins with a barren woman promised many children, commands her to enlarge her tent, promises that her seed will inherit nations and resettle desolate cities, recalls the shame of youth and the rejected wife, and finally compares Israel’s permanent restoration to the covenant after the Flood. Child and mother, husband and rejected wife, tent, land and expansion, shame and restoration, seed and inheritance: Isaiah 54 contains the complete grammar of both Noach’s family crisis and Ki Teitzei’s legal response.

The deeper reason for this remarkable pairing is now visible. The problem of Kanaanite occupation did not begin at Jericho; it began with Kanaan’s illegitimate birth, curse and illegitimate occupation of Shem’s allotted inheritance. Noach describes the broken family order, Ki Teitzei legislates against its repetition and Isaiah promises the covenantal restoration in which Israel’s children return, the tent or land expands and its seed inherits.

Ki Teitzei opens with war and ends with memory: “Remember what Amalek did to you,” attacking the faint and weak at Israel’s rear; when God gives rest “in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance,” erase Amalek’s remembrance—“do not forget.” Israel must remember its enemies, but also the law governing its own power. Kanaan’s occupation cannot be corrected; Amalek’s cruelty cannot be forgiven by forgetting the weak. The name Eretz Kanaan preserves memory of the original occupation, the covenant preserves the right of inheritance and the repeated Haftorah preserves the bridge between them: remember—do not forget!

Principal sources

· Original IsraelFact article

· Chabad: the Haftorah read with Noach and Ki Teitzei

· Ki Teitzei with Rashi

· Genesis 9 with Rashi

· Deuteronomy 23:1–3 with Rashi

· Bergsma and Hahn, “Noah’s Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan”

· Book of Jubilees 10:29–34

Zion!

Based on: The Primordial Reality of Zion

Few words carry as much heat today as Zion. For some, it evokes belonging, memory, and return. For others, it is heard through the language of politics, conflict, and accusation. In public debate, the word is often used so heavily that it becomes difficult to hear it at all.

But before Zion became a slogan, a battleground, or a banner, it was a biblical word.

That is where this article begins. Not with modern politics, and not with competing ideologies, but with a simpler and older question: what did Zion mean in Tanakh when it first appeared? Was it always just another name for Jerusalem, or did it first refer to something more precise — a distinct sacred point that later gave its name to something larger?

This question matters because words that become politically charged are often flattened. Their older meanings are buried under modern arguments. Yet in the logic of Tanakh, halakhah, and Jewish Kabbalah, Zion appears not merely as a poetic flourish but as a distinct sacred locus that Isaiah 52:8 preserves in restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a fortified, water-linked objective. Later, the name broadens in royal usage. Yet exactness in sacred law ensures the place of the altar at a sacred boundary that is also Zion. On that basis, the eastern ridge of Mount Moriah above the Gihon remains the strongest candidate for the recovery of Zion as a real and exact point. 

Modern readings often treat Zion as just another name for Jerusalem, and then allow mystical meaning only as metaphor. But the Jewish tradition works in the opposite direction. Sacred place is not holy because people later imagine it so. It is holy because it reflects a prior order: covenant, Presence, kingship, sacrifice, and transmission.

That is why Zion and Jerusalem should not be collapsed into one flat term. In the inner tradition, they are joined but not identical. Zion names concentration, foundation, and covenantal fixing. Jerusalem names kingdom, manifestation, and extension into history. If that distinction is real, then one should expect it to leave traces in text, law, and terrain.

The mystical reading does not float above Tanakh. It arises from the way Tanakh itself is built. The Mishkan, the Temple, the altar, the Holy of Holies, tribal boundaries, and laws of approach all assume that holiness is structured, graded, and locative. So when later tradition distinguishes Zion and Jerusalem, it is not indulging in poetic excess. It is reading a distinction already embedded in sacred order. Zion, on this reading, is concentrated sanctity: the place where relation is fixed, covenant is anchored, and Presence is not diffuse.

That also explains why the term “Zion” could later broaden. The name of the core can radiate outward to the larger body. But that later broadening does not prove that the original core never existed.

Isaiah 52:8 is the prophetic center of the question: בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה צִיּוֹן. The usual smoothing is “when God returns to Zion.” But the force of the Hebrew, "when God returns Zion" is sharper than that translation suggests.

The point is not that grammar alone settles every question. The point is that the verse refuses to let Zion become passive scenery. Zion stands in the line as the locus of restoration. The watchmen see “eye to eye” because what is described is concrete and manifest, not merely inward. This is where the mystical reading becomes stronger, not weaker. If Zion is a real point of covenantal alignment, exile is not only political displacement. It is dislocation between Presence and place. To say “God returns Zion” is therefore not rhetorical excess. It is a fitting expression of restored alignment.

Zion first appears in 2 Samuel 5 in a concrete setting. David captures the stronghold of Zion, and the action is tied to the tzinor, the water approach. Zion therefore enters Tanakh not as a vague symbol but as a fortified, water-linked objective. That matters. First appearances preserve profile. Even if later usage broadens, the first appearance shows what kind of place Zion originally was.

Yes, 1 Kings 8:1 later says that the City of David is Zion. But that proves later consolidation of the name, not necessarily original semantic breadth. A sacred name can expand outward from a more exact point. The strongest support for this argument is not mysticism alone, but halakhah. Rambam rules that the altar’s place is exact and may never be changed. This means sacred geography in Jerusalem is not arbitrary. That exactness matters. If altar-place is fixed, then boundaries matter, slopes matter, springs matter, and location matters. Holiness in Israel is not only intense. It is bounded.

This is why Joshua’s boundary texts and the rabbinic discussion in Zevachim matter. They preserve a memory that sacred layout was not symbolic drift but lawful structure. The southeast altar logic in particular shows that form itself carries tribal-boundary meaning.

God's presence settles in the west,
therefore mirror the image so left swaps right.

Once the question is framed this way, the eastern ridge above the Gihon is no longer an eccentric proposal. It becomes the one place where the main elements converge: water access, fortification, early monumental occupation, relation to the tzinor tradition, and fit with the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic. That does not mean every archaeological claim is beyond dispute. But it does mean the eastern ridge is the strongest setting in which Zion’s earliest profile still makes coherent sense.

More than that, it fits the sacred pattern. A foundational point would be expected to come first, then be covered over by broader royal and cultic expansion. That is exactly the kind of relation this ridge seems to preserve. 1 Kings 8:1 shows that by the Solomonic order, “Zion” had become an established designation for the City of David. But that may reflect transfer of the name from an original sacred core to the wider royal-sacral whole. That matters because exile is not only removal from land. It is also broadening without center. A name remains, a symbol remains, a city remains, but the exact point of alignment is obscured.

That is why restoration language remains so pointed. The memory of the core survives even when the name has spread outward. Zion should not be reduced to a loose synonym for Jerusalem, nor dissolved into a purely inward symbol. The stronger reading is that Zion is a differentiated sacred locus: foundational in the metaphysics of holiness and therefore capable of textual, legal, and topographic trace.

Isaiah 52:8 preserves restoration language too sharp to be neutralized. David first encounters Zion as a bounded, water-linked objective. Rambam preserves the exactitude of sacred place. Joshua and Zevachim preserve the boundary logic of holiness. The eastern ridge above the Gihon is the one terrain where these lines still cohere.

And this convergence does not end in a general preference for the ridge. It narrows to a candidate. Temple Zero names that point: a rock-cut sacred complex on the eastern slope above the Gihon, with reservoir, plastered water channel, cultic rooms, standing stone, and altar-related foundation. Here the water-linked setting of David’s Zion, the exactitude of altar law, the Judah-Benjamin boundary logic, and the inner demand for a concentrated point of Foundation cease to stand apart and begin to read as one stone grammar.

On that reading, Temple Zero is not merely another eastern-slope shrine. It is the strongest specific Zion candidate and its on the ridge above the Gihon: the place where prophetic restoration, altar-memory, the matzevah, and the antecedent pattern of later Temple design most nearly meet.

Therefore “when God returns Zion” should be heard as more than rhetoric. It is the language of the present day restoring of the foundational sacred point from which Jerusalem’s broader holiness radiated. To seek Zion in this way is not to subordinate mysticism to archaeology. It is to insist that the inner order of Torah leaves real traces in text, law, and land.

The video describes archaeology at the City of David location

This Stone Will Be God's House

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe and founder of Chabad asks a profound question about Jacob’s promise: “And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s house.”

How can a stone become the house of God?

Jacob made this promise while leaving the Land of Israel. He was travelling toward Haran, where he would marry, raise a family, acquire wealth and confront a world very different from the protected home of Abraham and Isaac. Before leaving, Jacob encountered and slept at a sacred place. He experienced his vision of the ladder joining earth and heaven, awoke in awe and declared:

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and the gateway to heaven.”

He then took the stone, erected it as a matzevah and poured oil upon it. He promised that, should God protect him and return him peacefully, the stone would become God’s house. When Jacob later returned, Genesis records that he again erected a stone pillar, poured an oil libation upon it.

The Alter Rebbe explained Jacob’s promise was made through the Divine names Havayah and Elokim. Havayah represents God as infinite, above nature, time and limitation. Elokim represents the Divine power concealed within nature; the ordered world in which everything appears to possess an independent existence. Jacob’s mission was to bring these two perspectives together; to reveal that the ordinary physical world is not separate from its infinite Creator. That is why the Torah emphasizes a stone.

A stone is among the simplest and most inert objects in nature. It has no visible life, intelligence or spiritual character. Yet Jacob declared that even this stone could become a house for God. He was saying that holiness is not limited to heaven, prophecy or moments of spiritual inspiration. The ultimate purpose is for holiness to enter family, work, land, wealth, speech and physical existence itself.

Jacob was not escaping the material world. He was preparing to enter it and transform it. Sefer Yetzirah, The Book of Creation compares stones to letters. One stone alone is simple. Stones joined together form a house. In the same way, one letter carries limited meaning. Letters joined together form words; words form ideas; and ideas allow the soul to express itself through speech.

Jacob’s stone therefore represents more than a physical monument. It represents the possibility that physical matter can be arranged to express a higher purpose. A stone becomes part of a house. A letter becomes part of a holy sentence. A physical life becomes a dwelling place for God. This is also why our words matter. Speech can expose division and concealment, or it can reveal the deeper unity connecting people, creation and its Creator.

In 2010 a remarkable archaeological discovery was made on the eastern slope of ancient Jerusalem and it gives Jacob’s declaration a new physical context. The Rock-Cut-Rooms near the Gihon Spring have now been published by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists as a cultic complex, first constructed during the Middle Bronze Age. The complex contains an upright standing stone, a matzevah, together with an altar platform, an oil installation, wine storage a liquid and water channel as part of a system to clean the area.

This does not by itself prove that the standing stone belonged to Jacob. There is no inscription bearing his name. But, the convergence is striking and carbon dating in the water channel aligns perfectly with Jacob's last 30 years in his homeland. Initially Genesis describes Jacob: erecting a stone as a matzevah, and 22 years later pouring a libation upon it and accepting his God given name - Israel. 

The Rock-Cut-Rooms contain the same unusual cluster of elements: a standing stone, oil production, wine or liquid chanellin, an altar, place for processing sacrificed animals and water system cleaning the areas. The archaeological study also places the complex’s origins in the Middle Bronze Age, the broad ancient period within which the patriarchal setting is commonly placed and aligns with the Temple Zero argument. Archaeology therefore cannot identify Jacob, but it can establish that an ancient cultic complex of the appropriate general character and period existed at this location.

The deeper meaning of the site is found in the continuity of the forefathers. Jewish tradition connects Jacob’s “place” with Mount Moriah, the sacred place already associated with Abraham and Isaac. Abraham encountered it as a mountain. Isaac encountered it as a field. Jacob called it a house. The layout and orientation also aligns to the Jewish laws that were practised in the first and second temple periods.

The famous commentator Rashi, drawing on Midrash and the Talmud, explains that Jacob’s “house of God” refers to the place of the future Temple. Ramchal draws on Kabbalah to reach the same conclusion. The tradition therefore presents Jacob not as discovering an unrelated shrine, but as receiving and completing the sacred inheritance of his father and grandfather.

Abraham revealed faith in the One God. Isaac demonstrated complete devotion. Jacob transformed that inheritance into a house, a permanent structure capable of containing a family, a people and a nation. That progression is essential: Abraham found the mountain. Isaac sanctified the field. Jacob began building the house.

The matzevah was therefore not merely Jacob’s private memorial. It marked the moment when the spiritual experiences of the forefathers became the heritage of their descendants.

At this place Jacob returned from exile, gathered his family and received Divine confirmation of the name Israel. The stone is consequently linked not only to Jacob the individual, but to the birth of Israel as a covenantal people. Genesis places Jacob’s renewed pillar, libation and anointing immediately alongside the confirmation of his new name.

The re-emergence of such a stone after thousands of years cannot establish its biblical identity with certainty. But, it invites us to reconsider Jacob’s message. Jacob did not promise that heaven would replace earth. He promised that earth could become conscious of heaven. He did not say that the stone would cease being physical. He said that the physical stone itself would become God’s house.

This remains the task of Israel: to reveal holiness within the ordinary world—through ethical action, careful speech, family, community, justice, creativity and the sanctification of material life. Jacob’s stone represents that possibility. The lowest thing can be elevated. The hidden can be revealed. A stone can become a house. And a physical world can become a dwelling place for God.

Contract With Destiny

BS”D

Orthodox students of Torah (Bible) know that G-d entered the sea to a conditional contract in preparation for its creation on the third day. Against nature, the sea would be obligated to divide when at a future time the Israelite people would desire to cross it. According to Torah and Jewish tradition, the sea honored its contract with Destiny during the Israelites’ hurried exodus from Egypt. 

Moses led Israel out of their exile through the divided sea, but he was denied entry into their promised land because on one occasion he showed disregard to G-d’s Destiny. Torah refers to this incident as the “waters of dispute” so-named when Moses hit a rock, twice, perhaps the wrong rock, instead he should have spoken to it, then destiny would have been realized and the rock would have released its water. But,  G-d’s attention was turned to the different outcome, as a result Moses pleaded 515 times to amend the contract written in Torah and permit him to enter the land. It wasn’t to be.

430 years prior to these events, before the Torah was revealed to the Jewish people, Abraham entered a covenant of parts during which he was told that his future descendants would be exiled after which they would be qualified to inherit their promised land. A question was raised about Abraham’s descendants that also included the nations that descended from Esau and Ishmael: Why didn’t they inherit Abraham’s land? Because they had departed from their tribal obligation to Abraham’s covenant of parts, they abandoned the land and disconnected from the progeny of Isaac and Jacob (Israel). On Israel's circuitous, redemptive return from exile some of these other Abrahamic descendent nations contested Israel’s inheritance, battled the tired and weary nation, but they were defeated with ease. 

Of all the Biblical characters, why is Joseph the only one referred to as righteous? The reason becomes obvious through his dramatic life, yet Joseph never messed with destiny. Despite losing his mother as a young boy, being kidnapped, sold by his brothers and framed by his master’s wife, after her unsuccessful attempt to seduce him, he positively endured his imprisonment. Knowing events of his life were predestined he retained his happy demeanor, delighting in every moment. Out of his imprisonment he rose to the administrative head of the most powerful nation, second only to Pharaoh, lured his Israelite family to Egypt, played his central role in their destiny and eventual return to the promised land.

G-d’s Torah contract with Destiny reflects a perfect line, which one should be careful not to disrupt because the consequences to restore Destiny's perfection may be ominous. No doubt that happens continuously and sometimes destiny is even changed for the better. However, righteous individuals who are finely tuned to Torah’s laws and their ties to Destiny, wisely limit interruptions. In this sense Torah’s rules for Divine synchronicity is our timeless blueprint! 

The United Kingdom of Israel

There are only two instances in the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible where the commonly used word 'toldot' (generations) is perfected. The first relates creation as a preparation for the souls that would follow into the world. The second declared the purpose of the first; a soul, through Judah and Tamar of the generations from Peretz to Boaz and Ruth (the second perfect spelling) from whom King David, the Messianic root descended. But, according to Kabbala, this would be preceded by the messianic soul of Joseph.

R'Shmuel, ben Nachman said: "The brothers were busy selling Joseph; Reuben was busy with his sackcloth and fasting; Jacob was busy with his sackcloth and fasting; Judah was busy taking a wife for himself; and God was busy creating the light of King Messiah. 'And it came to pass at that time and Judah went down...' before the first slave is born, before the final redeemer is born.

Jacob's only daughter Dinah was raped, but Jacob delayed telling his sons until they returned from the fields. They were outraged by the defilement, but also their father's delay. They hated Dinah's baby and wanted to kill it. Jacob placed an amulet around her neck, took her to a mountain near the priests of Midyan, placed her in a 'SNeh' (bush) and sent a request to the high priest to care for her. She was named AeSNath, from 'SNeh' and SiNai (meaning hatred).

When Aesnath reached the age her mother was violated, the Midianite priests began transporting her to the ancestral home of Jacob's wives. Along that route they changed plans, traded her to Ishmaelites and joined their caravan heading south to Egypt. Curiously Torah tells the Ishmaelites were carrying an unusual cargo, נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט : Spice, Gum and Balm. Rabbi Moses Ha-Kohen the Spaniard relates the word for Spice to a 'treasure house'. Separately Joseph's brothers kidnapped him and along that route to Egypt sold him to Midianites. Thus two caravans were separately transporting the people the brothers hated most; 17 year old Joseph and his 8 year old niece Aesnath, who he would later discover and marry.

Then, in the midst of the Joseph story Torah interjects the apparently unrelated story of Judah's descent from his brothers, his legitimate interlude with his ingenious daughter-in-law Tamar and the birth of their son Peretz that rescued the messianic line. The interjection exposed a low point of Judah's life juxtaposed with heights of immoveable messianic destiny. Jacob's wives, the house of Leah (through Dinah's daughter Aesnath) and the house of Rachel (Joseph) were ultimately united in marriage and the preceding messianic light of Joseph became firmly rooted for the Messianic redemption of Israel's tribes, the Jewish people.

The Torah returns us to the story. 22 years later, confronted by drought, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy supplies. They did not recognize Joseph who had become the Viceroy of Egypt, they presented him with Jacob's gift and bowed to him. At that moment Joseph realized his prophetic dreams, that had caused such hatred. But, Jacob's gift surprised him because it contained three of the same "unusual" elements צֳרִי֙ וּמְעַ֣ט דְּבַ֔שׁ נְכֹ֣את וָלֹ֔ט בָּטְנִ֖ים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים: of the "treasure house" that accompanied him on his caravan to Egypt. Perhaps a hint that his prophetic father had orchestrated the regional priestly diplomacy to ensure Aesnath accompanied Joseph on his exile in Egypt.

If even prophetically Jacob knew Joseph was alive, why did he mourn the 22 years of Joseph's absence? Because, his son's collectively lied about selling Joseph. And, Joseph was not innocent, free to communicate he chose not to reach out, for 22 years! In the brothers final confrontation with Joseph Judah assumed responsibility for Benjamin who was too young to be implicated in the devilish scheme his brothers perpetrated against Joseph. With that collective realization Judah bound Benjamin to the oath their brothers had once entered, never to reveal their darkest secret, about the sale of Joseph to their father and Joseph, admitting his own shortcoming, fell on the necks (Torah uses the plural) of his younger brother Benjamin. Together they wept over the trauma of their brotherly fracture that would result in the future destruction of Jerusalem's temples. But, the sons of Israel (Jacob) were united, bound by their collective silence.

Still seeking assurance, on his death bed Israel's sons assured him "Hear us, O' Israel The Lord is our God, The Lord is One" and Israel's final, parting response: Blessed be the glory of His kingdom for ever and ever! 

Pillars of the Jewish Generations

 

Click to enlarge

Why does the Torah literally state; "And the life of Sarah was 100 years and 20 years and 7 years"?(Bereishit - Genesis 23:1). It's a strange way to recount the terminal age of the matriarch. But, something more intriguing ocurs at this juncture, the foundation of the Jewish nation. Two woman bound together by the life of Isaac; son, husband and patriarch who never left the land of his inherritance. 

At the outset of the verse, the first word וַיִּהְיוּ֙ (Va'-Yi-h-Yu) is a palindrome with a numerical value of 37 that captures the age of Isaac at Sarah's death, which is said to have ocurred when Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice. The word also joins previous details on which Rashi comments; "the entire genealogy was recorded only to tell that Rebecca was born to Betuel".

Comentators highlight the rarity of the recorded deaths of women. Only Sarah, Devorah (Rebecca's wet nurse), Rachel and ~500 years later Miriam. Rebecca's passing is not mentioned at all and years mentioned only for Sarah, perhaps to emphasize her importance and Rebecca's humility.

Two events shaped the destiny of the Jewish people thanks to the conviction of matriarchs Sarah and Rebecca. Sarah banished Hagar and Ishmael from her family, causing the inherritance of Abraham's first born to pass to Isaac instead. And, 120 years later Rebecca insisted Jacob decieve Isaac to obtain the blessing normally held for their first born son Esau. 

Finally, immediately after Devorah passed and was burried, Rebecca passed and Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, the only child of Jacob to be born in Israel before she passed during childbirth. The passage of souls into the world had been completed and the destiny of the Jewish generation set until the end of days.

430 years before Pesach there was Pesach!

Two sacrifices are represented on the Seder Plate - Pesach (bone) and Chagigah (egg)

For the past ~3300 years Pesach or Passover has arrived when the 14th of Nissan transitions to the 15th and Jewish families of the world gathered for their Seder dinner to celebrate and acknowledge the moment the enslaved Jews of Egypt were finally freed. But, why and how have so many revered Rabbi's taught that 430 years before that fateful Pesach night the generations that descended from Abraham, Sarah, then Isaac, Rebecca and Jacob had already followed similar practices eating unleavened bread and sacrificing domesticated sheep or goats for the feast?

On the Seder night, the poor-man's bread, known as the Afikomen is broken, one piece is eaten the larger piece is put aside. Then a long held custom, for some play's out during the course of the meal when the children carefully await the right moment to 'steal' and hide the remaining Afikomen. The kids know the Seder meal cannot be completed because the Afikomen is the last item that must be eaten before recitations and the blessing over the fourth cup of wine, which marks the conclusion of the meal. When it comes time to eat the remaining Afikomen the inevitable negotiation begins and continues until the kids concur that a suitable exchange has been reached and the Afikomen returned. 

The strange custom reflects on ancient events that preceded the unleavened bread taken out of Egypt.

Abraham was the first to experience the prophecy of a future exile from the land he had inherited, this occurred 430 years prior to the Egyptian exile of his progeny. One sunny 14th of Nissan day 3 angels arrived to tell Abraham and Sarah of the future birth of their son Isaac. Elderly Sarah was busy making unleavened bread and Abraham ran off to slaughter cattle for the feast with his heavenly guests. They announced a year later Isaac would be born and that occurred on 15 Nissan.

   

Isaac was blind and at 122 years, five years before his mothers age at her death he called to his oldest son Esau to trap some game (two deer) and prepare it so Isaac could bless him with the rites of the first born over the feast. Isaac's wife Rebecca seized the moment for their younger son Jacob insisting he disguise as his brother Esau and deliver his father a meal of goat and lamb, that Rebecca would prepare to obtain the blessing in place of his older brother. Perhaps Rebecca anticipated an enraged Esau would force Jacob's flight to safety in exile, to the land of their estranged family where Jacob would ultimately be married, build his own family and 20 years later return to the land his father never left. 

When Esau discovered his blessings had been 'stolen' he pleaded; "Bless me too father!" Isaac answered; “Your brother came with cunning-wisdom - בְּמִרְמָ֑ה (b'mir'mah) and took away your blessing". The deception by Rebecca and Jacob is thus recalled in the custom for kids to express cunning-wisdom over the Afikomen. But, what's the underlying logic of the custom? The numerical value of b'mir'mah, 287 is the same as Afikomen connecting the custom over stolen, poor-man's, unleavened bread with the deception of Esau and the entrapment of Isaac. This is confirmed because Rebecca told Isaac to send Jacob away from the Hittites, amongst whom they lived to find a wife at their estranged family where, in exile Jacob would be out of sight of his enraged brother. 

The word 'Seder' [S-D-R] is associated with [S]od (secret), [D]rosh (inquiry) and [R]emes (hints) which allude to the deeper, often hidden associations in Jewish customs that parallel its written Torah. Here we see a further association with Pesach. On his birthday, Isaac ordered two animals, but why would Isaac need two animals, the man was blind and nearing the end of his days surely he couldn't eat that much? When the tabernacle or temples once stood the custom on Pesach was to bring two animal sacrifices known as Korban Pesach and Korban Chagigah (the extra sacrifice). The latter because the Torah expressly requires the bones of the Pesach sacrifice not be broken. The roasted animal had to eaten with delicate care to keep the carcass in tact. A feast with Esau - the hunter, a man with violent tendencies seems to have required another animal sacrifice to ensure the Pesach sacrifice would be cherished.

Finally, at the Pesach Seder four cups of wine are consumed, each representing a stage of the exile said to have lasted 86 years with the last being the harshest. 86 years x 5 stages = 430 years of exile, the period about which Abraham prophesied. The fifth cup of wine poured at each Seder table is poured and returned to the bottle for the soul of the prophet Eliyahu who, is said will appear to announce the final redemption when all Jews will be united in Jerusalem. The Seder concludes, even for Jews living in Jerusalem with the saying - "Next Year in Jerusalem"!

Who was Asenath?

Dinah the wife of Lavan was the mother of Leah and Rachel, both of whom married Jacob. Lavan motivated a deception of Jacob to first marry Leah although Jacob always considered Rachel his first wife, his first choice. Leah's daughter was said to have been swapped from Rachel who instead bore Joseph, her first son, Leah named her daughter Dinah, presumably after her mother. 

At 8 years old, Jacob's daughter Dinah was raped by Shechem and she conceived. The teenage sons of Jacob wanted to kill the baby to cover their shame, but Jacob objected, instead he placed the baby in a 'sneh', written as סנה - a 'bush' in Midian. The region of Midian was named after the son of Abraham, it roughly stretched from modern Medina (Saudi Arabia) along the Gulf of Arabia to Eilat (Israel).  

The baby was raised by priests in Midian and at age 9 it was transferred, most likely by Midianites on a caravan traveling along the trade route north, then west at Gilead, toward Shechem, the Mediterranean coast and south to Egypt. On their journey the Midianites encountered an Ishmaelite caravan also travelling west through Gilead to the coast and Egypt, they began trading while they travelled to their ultimate destination. 

Joseph was disliked by his brothers. At age 17, near Shechem they threw him into a pit (Genesis 37:25). They concocted an idea to sell him to the approaching Ishmaelite caravan coming from Gilead (Genesis 37:28). Unusually the Ishmaelites were carrying sweet smelling balms when they would normally carry tanning hides and tar. The Midianite caravan arrived at the pit before the Ishmaelite caravan to whom the brothers intended the sale, they removed Joseph from the pit and abducted him.

In the middle of the Joseph story Torah interrupts with a seemingly unrelated story about Joseph's brother Yehuda's (Judah) one-time relationship with the daughter-in-law of his deceased son. Tamar, who was the daughter of a high-priest, disguised as a prostitute expressed her right over Yehuda to procreate from the blood line of her deceased husband. This led to the birth of Peretz from whom the Messianic House of David lineage arose (Genesis 38:1).

Then, just as suddenly Torah returns to the continuation of Joseph's story. The Midianites traded with the Ishmaelites several times on the way to Egypt, ultimately they delivered Joseph to the house of Egypt's designated high priest and chief slaughterer Potiphar.  

Joseph was 30 when Pharaoh made him Viceroy over Egypt and blessed him to marry Asenath, the adopted daughter of Potiphar. Joseph had recognized Aesnath as being Hebrew by the amulet around her neck. Asenath - אסנת, is written using the same two letter source as 'sneh' and 'Sinai'. Jacob named her when he placed an amulet around her neck and left her in the 'sneh' on Mount 'Sinai' for the priestly caste of Midian to care for her. 

Many commentators declare Asenath the daughter of Dinah from the rape by Shechem. One Yemenite source adds that the unusual balm's carried by the Ishmaelites was a hint to Asenath being on the same transport with Joseph to the House of Potiphar, the high priest in Egypt. Considering Torah's juxtaposition of Judah-Tamar and the prospect that Joseph-Asenath were on the same caravan motivates deeper enquiry for such blatant interjection and suggestion. 

Although Judah was Jacob's fourth son to Leah, he rose above the rights of his older brothers to obtain the status of Leah's firstborn. Joseph was firstborn to Jacobs chosen wife Rachel. Jacob's progeny would eventually give rise to the Messianic lineage through penultimate Joseph and ultimate Judah. This is a central tenant of Judaism, the lens through which many of the interpersonal relationships recorded in the Torah can be better understood. 

Providence ensured Asenath would be on the caravan with Joseph to Egypt, to the same home and their marriage some thirteen years later. This was the first intermarriage between Leah and Rachel's bloodlines and Torah's interjection of Judah-Tamar confirms the subtle messianic allusion to Aesenath daughter of Dinah, granddaughter of Jacob. 

The tumultuous journey of Dinah's soul, its intermingling with Shechem, elevation through Asenath and eventual ascension with Joseph in Egypt preceded the messianic moment of Judah and Tamar that gave rise to Peretz, Boaz (Ruth), Yishai and David who was crowned King and from whom future kings descend. 

The word 'toledot' refers to generations, it is used dozens of times in the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. However, it is spelled perfectly in only two places; once in the first verses of Genesis (2:4) in reference to the creation of the souls of heaven and earth and once in the book of Ruth, naming the descendants of Peretz.

Torahs' finely woven words preserves the record of its deep seated interest in the messianic root for all who care to learn of its complete wisdom.

 

   

Jacob Knows!

The story of Yehuda and Tamar is a very strange juxtaposition to the kidnap and sale of Joseph. Many reasons are given, but I'd like to add more.

Joseph was 17 when he was sold, by his brothers to the Ishmaelites who traded with Midianites on their caravan journey to the house of Potiphar in Egypt. 

Genesis 37:25

(25) Then they (the brothers) sat down to a meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and ladanum to be taken to Egypt.

כה) וַיֵּשְׁבוּ֮ לֶֽאֱכָל־לֶחֶם֒ וַיִּשְׂא֤וּ עֵֽינֵיהֶם֙ וַיִּרְא֔וּ וְהִנֵּה֙ אֹרְחַ֣ת יִשְׁמְעֵאלִ֔ים בָּאָ֖ה מִגִּלְעָ֑ד וּגְמַלֵּיהֶ֣ם נֹֽשְׂאִ֗ים נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט הוֹלְכִ֖ים לְהוֹרִ֥יד מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃

Commentators raise the oddity of the Ishmaelite load, which would normally have been tars, not the fine balm's mentioned. A Yemenite midrashic source backs up my view that Torah is hinting at something very special.

The Ishmaelite caravan was trading with a Midianite caravan, traveling through Gilead as they separately journeyed to Egypt. The gum, balm and ladanum (נְכֹאת֙ וּצְרִ֣י וָלֹ֔ט - sweet smelling balm's) were a hint that Joseph's niece Aesnath (אסנת) who, 9 years earlier Jacob had placed in a 'sneh' (סנה), a bush in Midyan (perhaps Mount Sinai - סיניה) was traveling on the same caravan. Sneh is in fact the source of her name. Ultimately Joseph and Aesnath were traded into the House of Potiphar in Egypt.

However, the story of their journey is interjected and juxtaposed to the story about the death of Yehuda's two sons that led him to a relationship with is daughter in law, Tamar who birthed Peretz. Then oddly, immediately after the interjection, Torah returns to Joseph (of Rachel) who at 30 years was blessed by Pharaoh to marry Aesnath (from Dinah-Leah). This was the first time the bloodline of Jacob's two wives intermarried. 

Mystical Judaism introduces the idea that the Messianic son of Joseph will precede the Messianic son of Yehuda (David). That seems to be borne out of and supported by Joseph and Aesnath, on the same Caravan being interjected by and adjacent to Yehuda and Tamar (read the link for more about the Messianic soul).  

Later in the story, Joseph encountered his brothers and demanded they fetch the youngest brother  Binyamin from their father Jacob and bring him to Egypt. Reluctantly Jacob conceded, but he commanded his sons to return baring gifts of the land.

Genesis 43:11

(11) Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, do this: take some of the choice products of the land in your baggage, and carry them down as a gift for the man—some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, pistachio nuts, and almonds.

יא) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֜ם יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל אֲבִיהֶ֗ם אִם־כֵּ֣ן ׀ אֵפוֹא֮ זֹ֣את עֲשׂוּ֒ קְח֞וּ מִזִּמְרַ֤ת הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ בִּכְלֵיכֶ֔ם וְהוֹרִ֥ידוּ לָאִ֖ישׁ מִנְחָ֑ה מְעַ֤ט צֳרִי֙ וּמְעַ֣ט דְּבַ֔שׁ נְכֹ֣את וָלֹ֔ט בָּטְנִ֖ים וּשְׁקֵדִֽים׃

Three of the six gifts connect to the land, Honey (from dates), Pistachio and Almonds, but the remaining three are identical to and directly relate to the fine balm load carried by the Ishmaelites. Was Jacob hinting at something by sending these three specific gifts to Joseph? By Jacob connecting his gift to Aesnath he was hinting that he knew of her dispatch on the Midianite caravan to Egypt. 

The lofty, mystical pieces of this deeply spiritual world begin to be seen by us mortals. Jacob dispatched Aesnath and sent Joseph to find his brothers, the angel of Dothan delivered him into their hands. Torah juxtaposed the important event of Yehuda and Tamar. Jacob ultimately sent all his sons to Egypt and later the family of Israel immigrated. On Jacob's death bed, he anxiously wanted to tell them of the messianic roots he had set, but in unison his sons settled him saying "Hear O' Israel (as in Jacob) the Lord is God, the Lord is One" to which he responded "Blessed be the name of the glory of His Kingdom for ever and ever" then he left this world.