When Rivka told Yaakov that he should present himself as Esav in order to receive the coveted blessings from Yitzchak, Yaakov protested that Esav was hairy, whereas his own skin was smooth and s...

 Beds of the RighteousThe Torah impresses upon us the enormity of Og, king of Bashan, by saying, “Behold his bed (eres) is a bed (eres) of iron—is it not in Rabbat [capital of the] Sons of Ammon?...

 The Shining Sea of GalileeIn delineating the borders of the Holy Land, the Bible says that a sea (technically, a lake in topographical terms) called the Kinneret runs along the Promised Land’s e...

 Heavy Taxes and Empty PocketsThe Bible uses two Hebrew words for “taxes”: mas (or missim in plural) and meches. In this essay, we will explore the etymology and meanings...

Bovine Words: Cows and Cowboys The Torah allows ritual sacrifices to be brought from only three families of animals: ovine (sheep), bovine (cows), and caprine (goats). In this essay we will explo...

 Are You Really “With Me”?The most common word, by far, in the Bible is et, which appears roughly 12,000 times! In general, the word et cannot be untranslated into English, because...

 The Torah introduces the laws of the Red Heifer by saying, “This is the chok of the Torah” (Num. 19:2). From this instance and many others it seems that the word chok (or&nbs...

 Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740-1814) writes that eden and oneg both refer to pleasure. He notes that both terms speak about enjoyment, regardless of whether that pl...