Tanach Thoughts

Happy to update that Megadim volume 63, dedicated to one of the founders of the journal, Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun, has finally been published and uploaded to the journal's section on the Herzog College website. You can find it here . The journal includes the long-anticipated paper by Gershon Galil and Eli Shukron summarizing some of their new research on inscriptions they associate with King Chizkiyahu. This paper is a reworking of one chapter of their still-anticipated book on the inscriptions, due to come out some time in the near future. Other papers that off the bat look interesting to me (though, knowing myself, boredom and lack of reading material will probably lead me to read most of the rest and discover that others are interesting as well): A paper by Rabbi Prof. Yoel Elitzur on the mentioning of Chiel's building of the wall of Yericho. A paper by Dr. Neriah Klein on Sefer Melachim as a historical reconstruction of biblical history from Beresheet to Shoftim. A paper by Dr. Y...

Tonight, the 27th of Tammuz, is my birthday. As it happens, my second name is Yechezkel. A short time before my bar-mitzvah, I discovered that the only place in Tanach in which "Harel" appears is the Book of Yechezkel. My parents were not aware of this when they named me. My second name comes from my great-grandfather, but - I suppose we could say it's the hashgacha/providence that is given to parents when they name their children.  Again, as it happens, I have, at long-last, finished learning the Book of Yechezkel. As such, I thought I would write down my thoughts about the book. I will first say that for a little over two years now I've been planning to learn Yechezkel, but haven't gotten around to it. The reason I was particularly interested in Yechezkel was because of a dream I had around the time. I've only had a handful of truly significant dreams in my life. This one, I felt, was one of those. In the dream, I heard one of the most serious people in my y...

 In the parsha this Shabbat we heard tell of the first conquests of Bnei Yisrael as preparation toward conquering Canaan. After crushing Sichon at Yahtzah, the armies of Yisrael storm Og's land and from there the Tribe of Menashe storm the northeastern portion of the Golan and Bashan. Which raises a question: From p'shat, it seems that Am Yisrael was in the Golan, then headed back south to Arvot Moav, which is where Balak and Pinchas take place. They hang around that area until past Moshe's death, and then they head west, cross the Jordan River in Yehoshua and conquer Yericho (opposite where they were in Arvot Moav). Now, some people may not be aware of this, but it seems that this was hundreds of kilometers back and forth, just to get the people back to Arvot Moav! Why? I mean, why not simply conquer Canaan from the Golan? Rabbi Dr. Yoel Bin Nun explains in this  excellent class that Bnei Yisrael actually split into two groups: The advancing army which conquered the Land ...