Tanach Thoughts

In memory of מלכיה בן דב גרוס (Malkia ben Dov Gross) hy"d Last night I received the terrible announcement that Malkia Gross, a friend from my yeshiva, was killed in Gaza on Shabbat. Malkia is one of the few people I know who I would describe as being "sharp" and "bright". B"H I know many smart and intelligent people, but there are a certain few people whose brains fall into the category of "sharp", and he was one of them. This sharpness passed into his incredible sense of wit and humor. He recently started teaching math as part of his teacher's certification. Before I went to sleep last night, I asked myself - or Hashem, I'm not entirely sure - why Chizkiyahu merited to have a massive miracle that obliterated the Assyrian army during Sanchariv (Sennacherib)'s siege on Yerushalayim. For a moment I was angry. Here we were fighting for our lives thousands of years later, and while there may have been pocket-sized miracles, we don't g...

It's no secret that things have been utterly crazy here in Israel for the last month, what with the massacre and the war and all that. While waiting to be drafted to the reserves, I spent some of my time working on various research projects and I'm pleased to say that on Tuesday I finally got the okay from my professor to send in again my paper on the Levitical cities, almost a year since it was rejected with the caveat that I could send it in again if I fixed it. So, a few minutes ago I finished editing it and sent it in. I hope it'll get accepted this time. If not, I'll have to find a different journal.

This will be a two-post series on the subject of the destruction of Shiloh. More precisely, on the destruction of the Tabernacle at Shiloh. The Tabernacle at Shiloh was constructed already in the days of Yehoshua ( idem. 18:1 ). There it remained until mysteriously disappearing circa the Israelite-Plishtite War in Shmuel 1:4:1-22 . After this war, we do not hear of people coming to the Tabernacle at Shiloh. Instead they go to places such as Nov and Giv'on. The reason was only reported centuries later, in Yirmiyahu 26:1-6  where Hashem tells Yirmiyahu to pass on a prophecy that if the people of the Kingdom of Yehudah do not fix their ways, the Temple will be destroyed just like the Tabernacle in Shiloh (similarly mentioned in ibid. 7:13-15 ). Subsequently, people get angry at Yirmiyahu for having the gall to threaten them with a destruction on par of that of Shiloh ( ibid. 8-9 ). Wait, destroyed? When did that happen?! Actually, this was hinted at already in a Tehillim chapter writt...

 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 ...