Tanach Thoughts

Nearly a year ago I posted about a topic that I had been thinking about, which is the boundaries of the northern territory of Dan, the one they conquered after leaving their original coastal territory. Last Shabbat (yesterday), I started thinking about how mapping out something like this would work, given that the Tanach doesn't give us any explicit information regarding their new territory, save for their central city, Laish/Leshem/Dan. It occurred to me that the next best thing would be to mark the boundaries of all countries and tribal territories around them- and the middle space will be that of Dan. I don't know if it's entirely possible, though. But we could probably mark up well the boundaries of Naftali and the Transjordanian half of Menashe. That would give us Dan's western and southern borders. In the east we have the Aramean petty kingdoms (new term I heard...): Geshur, Tov, Ma'achah, Aram Tzovah, Aram Damascus (I hope I didn't forget anyone). Archeol...

Sadly my Levitical Cities paper was rejected once again from the first journal it was sent to. To recap, I first sent it during winter of last year. It was summarily rejected but I was given the option of improving it and sending it in again. It took an entire year, but I finally managed to send it in a little over a month ago. But it has now been rejected once again. Still, largely it went better than last time. Last time it was rejected on the doorstep by the editor. This time it was at least passed along to peer reviewers, so I received a copy of their reviews. Probably mistakenly the editor also passed along a slightly corrected copy of the paper which showed who one of the reviewers was. I always blow out some air with a "pssshh" when I recognize a name. And yes, I recognized the name of the reviewer. He actually complemented me, despite thinking that the paper wasn't a good fit for that particular journal. He thought it should be sent to a different journal, which i...

...I've decided to get back to posting on my other blog . I'll still be posting here Tanach-related stuff, but if you're interested in reading my thoughts on other subjects (everything from personal going-ons to the trials of academia to thoughts on other fields of Torah to whatever else may come to mind), you're welcome to check it out.

May this post be in merit of our soldiers, a swift return of the hostages and a speedy recovery for Dror Yisrael ben Rut Miriam (דרור ישראל בן רות מרים). I noticed something interesting while reading last week's parasha. After Yosef claims that his brothers came to Egypt to spy on the land, the brothers are forced to leave behind Shimon and go back home to bring Binyamin. Yaakov, naturally, is against this idea. Reuven says the following ( Beresheet 42:37 ): " וַיֹּאמֶר רְאוּבֵן אֶל אָבִיו לֵאמֹר אֶת שְׁנֵי בָנַי תָּמִית אִם לֹא אֲבִיאֶנּוּ אֵלֶיךָ תְּנָה אֹתוֹ עַל יָדִי וַאֲנִי אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ אֵלֶיךָ" " Then Reuben said to his father, “You may kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my care, and I will return him to you.”" What's interesting here is that in this week's parasha it says that Reuven had four sons (and that was the case for later mentions of Reuven's sons). But Reuven doesn't say "You may kill two of  my so...

May this post be in merit of our soldiers, a swift return of the hostages and a speedy recovery for Dror Yisrael ben Rut Miriam (דרור ישראל בן רות מרים). Once I read Yirmiyahu in a single sitting. It took a few hours, to be sure, but I studied it all during one seder erev (evening study period) at yeshiva. It was during the three weeks and I had tears in my eyes part of the time. I had been in the middle of writing an essay comparing Plato's writings with those of Yirmiyahu because of an old tradition that Yirmiyahu met Plato and perhaps even taught him. After going through some Platonic texts, as well as gathering as much info on their purported relationship as I could, I turned to studying Yirmiyahu. And so I read it all. And I was deeply immersed and moved. I found myself deeply relating to Yirmiyahu's difficult life. To this day I feel a deep connection to his character. Two verses in particular caught my eye that night, 9:22-23 : " כֹּה אָמַר ה' אַל יִתְהַלֵּל חָכ...