Jacob's Tears

The stories of Genesis reveal the underlying hand of Providence that insists (tragically) on the bloodlines over human emotions and relationships.

In the tears of Jacob we sense the intimations he already senses for the temporality of his love for Rachel as we also see in Dante’s 

love of Beatrice (and his eventual realization that this leads to the lev of the divine).

So too,  (lehavdil) the way Norman Jewison (midrashically!) connects the love of Ronny Cammareri (Nicolas Cage) for Loretta (Sher) in Moonstruck (1987).

As Loretta and Ronny go to the Met, to see Puccini’s La Boheme.... we are given Mimì’s famous “Donde lieta,” whereupon. Loretta cries. 

Mimì’s resignation of her love for Rodolfo echoing the way Loretta feels regarding her pending marriage and true love for Ronny. 

In this moment, the opera itself reflects the inner turmoil of the film’s characters.

It our pericope Jacob embracing, kissing Rachel then crying is just such a tragic moment. 

Esau's Tears

The Image of Esau crying when he discovers the blessing was stolen has repercussions for the descendants of Jacob. The Midrash and Zohar track the grief he suffered through the three tears he shed and their effect on Jewish suffering.

Mamre the Man, the Place, the Legend

Mamre is the site where Abraham pitched the tents for his camp, built an altar (Genesis 13:18), and was brought divine tidings, in the guise of three angels, of Sarah's pregnancy (Genesis 18:1-15).

The Oak of Mamre is possibly a Terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus) and its location near to Hebron (off limits to Israelis since the Oslo Accords).

Genesis 13:18 has Abraham settling by 'the great trees of Mamre'. The original Hebrew tradition appears, to judge from a textual variation conserved in the Septuagint, to have referred to a single great oak tree, which Josephus called Ogyges.

We investigate the man Mamre in Midrash as well as the dazzling interpretation of his interaction with Avrohom in the Tshuos Chen, Reb Gedaliah of Linitz a disciple of the BESHT.

Abraham's Journey: Transformation of Guilt into Unconditional Love

In this mediation on the space between Now ch and Lech Lecha we are provided midrashically with the first of the ten trials of Abraham.

This unacknowledged trial in the listing in Mishnah Avot is however mention in Pirke DeReb Eliezer.

We struggle with the evolution of the trials from the first in Nimrod’s fire to the tenth, the fire on the altar with isaac bound.

Is it possible to plot a trajectory of the backstory (emerging from the fire, brother burned in the same fire) and its resultant feeling of guilt, and the wandering and exile to Canaan from the center of civilization, as an internal

and epigenetic trauma of loss (of his brother) and the caring for Lot (his brother’s son) and see the stories of Genesis as a working through of this primal

trauma and it transformation to the middah of unconditional loving?

If so we have a spiritual roadmap for the fires that consumed us a generation ago, and the need for our transformation.

Meir Yechiel's Bris

Genesis: The Generations of Mankind

The Ruzhiner on Ha'azinu

Letting Go of the Sheretz in the Mikvah

Covenant and Dispensation

All Is Not Fair in Love and War

Listening as Witnessing

The Prince and the Beautiful Wench

The Fixing Of The Gaze

TSHUOS CHEN: Tisha B'Av Torah

Vows Vs. Oaths

In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first learn to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design . . . and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, necessary, even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!

Nietzsche

The lies we tell,

stories we sell

to keep this love alive.

Truth betrays

what we say

in order to survive.

What emotions shed

are easily misread

when blind eyes open.

How we pretend

time spent

keeps souls unbroken.

If I really love you,

as I say I do,

goodbye should be said.

But, no - I'll cajole,

make you a fool,

anchor you here instead.

Vav Ketiya: The Brokenness of Pinchas

Bala'am's Monocular Vision

The Good Sin

Channah's Prayer and Korach

Joshua's (Mis)naming