Tanach Thoughts

*For those anxiously anticipating the continued adventures of the Danites (not) at sea, that will be B"H a later post, some time.  Besides for exams, I also need to hand in my first academic paper, for my academic writing course. The topic I'm researching is whether the Levitical Cities may have also been border-defense cities. Naturally, part of the research includes attempting to identify the locations of the cities and examining any archeological evidence uncovered so far. Which brings me to the topic of this post: The list of the cities appears in two places: Once in Yehoshua 21 and once in Chronicles 1:6 . The lists are not exactly the same and there are many theories on why this is so, which we won't get into now. My focus in this paper is the cities given by the Tribe of Yissachar. The list in Yehoshua reads :  Kishyon, Dovrat, Yarmut and Ein Ganim, while the list in Chronicles reads : Kadesh, Dovrat, Ramot and Anem. Once again, there are different theories on the ...

In the vast realm of phobias in which there's a phobia for everything from benches to books, one stands above all: Fear of boats. Okay, not really. I just wanted to be somewhat dramatic. This will be a fairly short post because I need to get back to studying for exams, but the other day I read an interesting essay by Shmuel Schnitzer , who was a journalist and also translated many books from various languages into Hebrew. In a book of essays written in memory of Moshe Goldstein (still not sure who he was, but from the book he seems to have been some sort of academic scholar, possibly of biblical studies), Schnitzer published an essay dedicated to understanding the verse "ודן למה יגור אוניות", typically translated as "And Dan—why did he linger by the ships?" ( Judges 5:17 ), which comes from the Song of Devorah. In this particular verse, she seems to be rebuking Dan. Schnitzer argued that it would make more sense to understand the word "יגור" not as ...

Last year I made a post about what I perceived (and still do, to some extent), to being a big mystery, and that, is the meaning of David's name. I brought a few theories and suggestions, but nothing solid. A few days ago, a new theory came to mind, which I think is more solid (though not necessarily perfect): Daat Mikra and others suggest that David is a short-form of Dodvayahu, which is a combination of Dod (beloved) and the name of Hashem, so it means = beloved of Hashem. I rejected this option in my previous post, but having thought about it again this week, I think it might point to another possibility: In Hebrew, there are things called "binyanim" (בניינים). Wikipedia  tells me that this should be translated as "grammatical conjugations". In short, in Semitic languages, verbs can be deflected to different tenses and forms. Typically, these are symbolized by verbs in the פעל (P'AL) root. One such form is the פעיל form, which means that someone is active...

Yes, the title is a misnomer. The question was originally asked by the Mechilta on the verse . And that question is as follows: ""And he took six hundred choice chariots" ( 14:7 ): Whence came the horses required for the chariots? If you would say, from Egypt, is it not written (Ibid. 9:6) "and all the cattle of Egypt died"? And if you would say, from Pharaoh, is it not written (Ibid. 3) "Behold, the hand of the Lord is in your cattle in the field, in the horses, etc."? And if you say, from Israel, is it not written (Ibid. 10:26) "And our cattle, too, will go with us; not a hoof will remain"? Whence, then, did they come?" Now, the Mechilta goes on to explain that the horses belonged to those Egyptians who feared Hashem and listened to Moshe's warnings during the plagues that killed the domesticated animals. But earlier this evening I thought of two other possibilities: 1. The midrash in Shemot Rabbah 10:2 says (loose translation): ...

 A few days ago, we reached in the Daf Yomi two mishnas that deal with customs of heretics and sectarians in terms of prayer. One of these mishnas says the following: "One who constructs his phylacteries in a round shape exposes himself to danger and he does not fulfill the commandment to don phylacteries If one placed the phylacteries worn on the head on his forehead, or if he placed the phylacteries worn on the arm on his palm, and not on his bicep, this is the way of the heretics. If one plated his phylacteries with gold or placed the phylacteries worn on the arm on the outside of his sleeve [ unkeli ], this is the way of the outsiders, i.e., those who do not take part in the traditions of the Jewish people." (translation based on Sefaria's for Megillah 4:8 ) This is a very curious mishna for those, such as myself, who take interest in understanding the customs and views of ancient Jewish sects and what our sages thought of them. One of the issues with ...

לעילוי נשמת אברהם בן ישראל יצחק Post in memory of Avraham ben Yisrael Yitzchak Last night, my grandmother's brother died. This comes in the wake of the passing of my grandfather less than two years ago and the passing of one of my aunts less than a year ago. All very sudden and health-related, but nothing due to corona. This post is dedicated in his memory. Some time ago, I noticed that there was a typical sort of eulogy or lament in Tanach. It is referred as "הוי אחי" - "Oh, my brother". It's only mentioned twice in Tanach - in Kings and Yirmiyahu, but there's also a sort of - offshoot, I guess? that appears later in Yirmiyahu as well, which is a eulogy that seems to have been reserved for royalty, and that's the "הוי אדון" - "Oh, [my] lord" eulogy. Here are the verses (this translation uses the variants "alas" and "ah" instead of "oh"): "He laid the corpse in his own burial place; and they lame...