When Moshe first appears before Pharaoh, not only does Pharaoh refuse to allow the Jewish slaves to leave Egypt, but he intensifies their suffering. He orders them to gather their own straw for bricks while maintaining the same production quota (Shemos 5:18). When the Jewish foremen blame Moshe for worsening their plight (5:21), Moshe turns to Hashem in anguish:   “My Lord, why have You done evil to this people, why have You sent me? From the time I came to Pharaoh to speak i

At the beginning of this week’s parsha, Yaakov is nearing the end of his life. He calls Yosef to his bedside and asks him to promise that he will not be buried in Egypt, but rather in the Land of Israel: “Please if I have found favor in your eyes, please place your hand under my thigh and do kindness and truth with me – please do not bury me in Egypt. For I will lie down with my fathers and you shall transport me out of Egypt and bury me in their tomb. He [Yosef] said, ‘I per

In this week’s parsha, we reach the conclusion of the dramatic story of Yosef and his brothers. Yosef finally reveals his identity and brings his entire family down to Egypt, where he is able to sustain them during the years of famine. The Torah describes Yosef’s care for his family as follows: “ Yosef sustained his father and his brothers and all of his father’s household with food, according to the children. ” (Bereishis 47:12) The verse seems repetitive. We are already tol

The Torah tells us that there was a great famine in Egypt and the surrounding countries. As the famine intensified and his family’s food supply dwindled, Yaakov urged his children to act: “Yaakov perceived that there were provisions in Egypt; so Yaakov said to his sons, ‘ lama tisrau  (Why do you look upon one another)?’  And he said, ‘Behold, I have heard that there are provisions in Egypt; go down there and purchase for us from there, that we may live and not die.’” (Berais

The Torah begins the parsha by telling us that Yosef was a uniquely gifted person. The Torah says that: “These are the generations of Yaakov. Yosef at the age of seventeen was tending the sheep with his brothers by the flock, but he was a youth with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Yosef would bring evil reports about them to their father. Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his children, because he was ben zikunav , and he made him a fine wool

The Torah (Beraishis 32:8) tells us that Yaakov was greatly frightened by his pending encounter with Esav. In preparing for his reunion, the Torah tells us that he moved his entire family across the Yabok River: “He took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons.” (Beraishis 32:23)   Rashi  notices that he Torah lists Yaakov’s eleven sons but makes no mention of his daughter, Dinah. Rashi, citing the Midrash, explains:   “He placed her in a chest and locked her

After twenty difficult years in Lavan’s household, Yaakov finally confronts his father-in-law and contrasts Lavan’s deception with his own unwavering honesty: “These twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and she-goats never miscarried, nor did I eat rams of your flock. That which was mangled I never brought you – I myself would bear the loss, from me you would exact it whether it was stolen by day or stolen by night. This is how I was: By day scorching heat consumed me

At the end of this week’s parsha, Yitzchak and Rivkah send Yaakov to Lavan to find a wife. When Esav sees this, he finally realizes that his parents did not want their children to marry Canaanite women—a standard he himself had ignored when he married two Canaanite wives. In response, Esav decides to take a third wife, this time from a different family: “Esav perceived that the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Issac, his father. So Esav went to Ishmael and took Ma

In this week’s parsha, Avraham sends his trusted servant Eliezer to Charan to find a wife for Yitzchak. Bereishis  chapter 24 recounts in detail how Eliezer arrived at the well, prayed for success, and immediately encountered Rivka, who fulfilled the exact signs of kindness he had asked from Hashem. After meeting Rivka and being invited to her home, Eliezer retold the entire sequence of events to her brother Lavan and her father Bethuel. When he finished, they responded: “T

In this week’s parsha, Avraham poses a remarkable and challenging question to G-d : “Will you also stamp out the righteous along with the wicked? What if there should be fifty righteous people in the midst of the city? Would you still stamp it out rather than spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people within it?” (Beraishis 18:23-24) Avraham was pleading with G-d to spare the people of Sodom. But this raises a difficult question: Why would Avraham do so? The p