The Pshat Heard 'Round the World

In another two days, I am scheduled to see my surgeon, who, if all is well with my knee, will allow me to remove the brace which has kept it straight as a ruler for six weeks and begin relearning how to bend. It is therefore more than a bit auspicious that the parashah which we read today, Vayechi, contains two mentions of “knees” (of the four in all the Torah). The latter mention, “Also the sons of Machir, son of Menashe, were born on Yosef’s knees”, is clearly not be taken literally. Rather, as Rashi writes, it means Yosef raised them, or, perhaps, as this grandpa has experienced, they grew up knocking around his knees, and thus got to know their great-grandpa. Not so the former mention. There, in the midst of the complex and confusing dance which is Yaakov’s blessing to his two grandsons, Menashe and Ephraim, it states, “And he (Yosef) removed them (the grandsons) from between his (Yaakov’s) knees and he prostrated himself, face to ground” Ibn Ezra writes that this verse belo...

We didn’t give it a nickname. I never even referred to it as “she”, as was once the fashion with vehicles of all sorts. Nevertheless, I felt that same strange bond with our 1993 Subaru “Station” (as that sort of is called in Israel, dropping the “wagon”) that develops between people and their possessions over time. It was the only car we’d owned since making Aliyah, bought for us by my parents, one of their many munificent acts on our behalf over the years. Keeping its provenance in mind, I tried to use it for mitzvot whenever possible – given “trempistim” (hitchhikers in Israeli parlance) rides as the default option, lending the car to friends in need, trying not fret and worry when our son our daughter took it somewhere. We were careful to keep it up as directed, and it was dependable in return, perhaps sensing how dependant we had become on it. Oh, there I go again, anthropomorphizing. Well, you can hardly blame me, as I have moved from denial to mourning. You see, our car w...

The great thing about monotheism is that we all pray to the same G-d!! At least, that's what they tell you. "Why can't there be peace between the peoples of the world, it's all the same, just with different names". This is asserted as a truism regarding the (drum roll, please!) "Three Great Western Faiths". Additionally, Zoroastrianism, a world religion which has fallen upon the hardest of times for the last thousand years or so, and the paradigm of dualism in the eyes of the Sages, is really monotheistic, if you read the encyclopedia article. Buddhism may not be theistic, but at least it's mono. And even the carnival of gods that Hinduism sports, we are told, are merely manifestations of THE ONE. But, I assert, this is mere childishness. Just SAYING that one believes there is one god doesn't translate into a living relationship with Hashem - even where that assertion is expressed as profound theology. This is because the Oneness of Hashem is not...