It has been over 100 days since Oct 7 and the abduction of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Wise has created this beautiful prayer and song to express our solidarity with the hostages and their families and our fervent desire for a safe return. On The Egyptians and the Israelites[i] The best way to capture the Bible’s account of the relationship between the people of Israel and the Egyptians is: “It’s complicated.” Though the predominant and memorable image is one of cruel enslavement as portrayed in the Exodus account, elsewhere in the Bible, Egypt is a place of refuge. Abraham —  as well as Jacob and his extended family —  find safety in Egypt. Would-be Israelite kings flee to Egypt to escape their vengeful kinsfolk and often ally with Egypt against their enemies. Most importantly, we know of a significant ancient Jewish presence on the island of Elephantine in the upper Nile as early as [...]

It has been over 100 days since Oct 7 and the abduction of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Wise has created this beautiful prayer and song to express our solidarity with the hostages and their families and our fervent desire for a safe return. On Pharaoh's Daughter The ancient rabbis loved a textual vacuum. When a Torah character’s biography was obscure, those creative rabbis filled it with midrash. Such is the case with the vaguely referenced “Pharaoh’s daughter.” The unnamed daughter of the unnamed pharaoh was ripe for their imaginations. Who was this mysterious character that rescued the redeemer of the Hebrew slaves from the waters of the Nile? First, they gave her a name: Bityah – daughter of God! A high honor for an Egyptian and reflective of her role in nurturing the great Moses. (Incidentally, the 1956 blockbuster The Ten Commandments Anglicized the Hebrew and called her Bithiah). The rabbis loved the irony of [...]

It has been over 100 days since Oct 7 and the abduction of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Wise has created this beautiful prayer and song to express our solidarity with the hostages and their families and our fervent desire for a safe return.On PharaohFor those of us who remember the movie “The Ten Commandments,” we have an unshakable image of Yul Brenner as the pharaoh Ramses. Reflecting the historical assumptions of its time, this 1956 film led subsequent generations to believe that the Pharaoh of the Exodus actually could be identified with a particular historical figure. Now, nearly 70 years later, modern scholars caution against linking the Torah’s generic term “pharaoh” with an actual Egyptian figure. In fact, what is most notable is that the pharaohs in the Joseph story and the Moses story are not named. Professor of Bible Israel Knohl of the Hebrew University suggests that the Torah’s pharaohs are likely [...]

It has been over 100 days since Oct 7 and the abduction of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Wise has created this beautiful prayer and song to express our solidarity with the hostages and their families and our fervent desire for a safe return. On Moses “Torah does not provide all the answers, but it inspires us to ask very important questions.” That’s my favored framing for how we can understand Torah as modern Jews. I recently read an essay by Prof. Rabbi Jonathan Magonet of Leo Baeck College in London that emphasized aspects of Moses’ character that revealed qualities I’d never noticed before. As a text with multiple authors writing over centuries, the Torah is a rich composite of perspectives that can either be segmented into its many components or interpreted in its entirety. Think of the ways that we view a mosaic: stand close and we see the qualities of each tile, step back [...]