In Hebrew, the name "Isaac" means laughter. When Sarah is promised a child at an older age, she laughs inwardly with disbelief. Later when the promise comes true and she gives birth, she says God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh for me. The first laugh was that of inward cynicism

Abraham...pitched his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east, and he built there an altar to the LORD, and he invoked the name of the LORD. This is the first time that Abraham invokes the name of God. Where is he? Between two cities: Bethel is to the west and Ai

The story of righteous Noah who walked faithfully before God, ends with him drunk from wine, cursing some of his offspring and blessing others. How did such a quality person arrives at so unfortunate a place? The problem was not, Sforno says, that he became drunk. The problem was that after the flood he first

And the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's wind hovering over the waters...In other accounts of Creation, there is a wind god and a water god. Here we have wind and water, explains Richard Friedman, but this time the gods of nature have disappeared, and nature is demythologized and

This year Hoshana Rabba begins on Saturday night, it is the last of the intermediate days of Sukkot. There is a custom to stay up studying Torah on Hoshana Rabba night. How did this custom develop? One theory is that the next day, on Simkhat Torah, we celebrate the completion of the yearly Torah cycle.