What can a fraught meeting between brothers teach us about our own instincts?The events of October 7 shattered the worldview for many of us, and can cause us to approach how we understand the Torah differently. In this week’s … Read the rest

Vayishlah 5783: Confronting Hate

Dec 6th, 2022 29m 46s

Yaakov returns from Lavan’s house to meet Esav, and he is petrified. Esav is coming with 400 men. Is he seething with hatred and violence, or has he possibly missed his brother and is instead coming to welcome him. The … Read the rest The post

Parashat Vayishlach 5782 – Cyclical History

Nov 14th, 2021

Parashat Vayishlach 5782 – Cyclical HistoryDescription: Does History repeat itself? Nachmanides thinks it does! He reads the entire standoff between Jacob and Esau as a paradigm of future events – Isael and Rome, Judaism and Christianity. What

VaYishlach 5781: Facing Forward

Nov 30th, 2020 25m 4s

Jacob is a man divided within himself, as suggested by the paradoxical statement that “Jacob remained alone,” yet “a man struggled with him.” With an emphasis on the recurring “guiding words” in the text, we will explore the nature of… Read the

5780 — Vayishlach: Looking Failure in the Face

Dec 8th, 2019 17m 34s

After 34 years as a fugitive on foreign soil, Yaakov returns home to resettle in his ancestral land. What makes him instigate a hazardous encounter with his brother Esav, who vowed to kill him for ‘stealing’ his blessing decades earlier? … Read

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