Genealogy
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- Anthologies, California, Di Yunge, Fradl Shtok, Frances Zinn, Galicia, Genealogy, New York, Poetry, Sonnets, Stories, Women's History Month, Yiddish, Yiddish Women Writers
Yiddish Sonnet-ing (Women’s History Day Eight)
Coming over in the wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the first decade of the 1900s, Fradl Shtok left Galicia and found herself in New York City as a young woman. Having…
- 5780, Abraham, Ancestors, Bereshit, Beshert, Chayyei Sarah, Death, Dissertation Diary, Genealogy, Generations, Genesis, Hebron, Isaac, Life, Marriage, Matriarchs, Parsha, Patriarchs, Rebekah, Sarah
Burials & Besherts
The last parsha was filled with Sarah’s life, and this one is, well…not. She dies almost immediately – the title, taken from the opening verse, instead offers a glance back. From here, Parashat…
- Ancestors, Bereshit, Blessing, Brothers, Culture, Egypt, Genealogy, Generations, Israel, Jacob, Joseph, Komps Kaos, Oath, Parsha, Shemot, Text Study, Textual Criticism, Torah, Vayechi
The End of the Beginning
The end of Bereshit – an accomplishment that feels markedly set within each year of Torah engagement. We have traipsed through our creation stories, begun to wrestle with our relationship to G!d (and…
- 5779, Barrenness, Bilhah, Fertility, Genealogy, Generations, Jacob, Journey, Komps Kaos, Laban, Leah, Midrash, Parsha, Rachel, Sister Wives, Tribe, Vayetzei, Zilpah
Sister-Wives for Real
Our foremothers did a lot of kvetching & worrying about fertility. Barrenness is a recurring theme in scripture for these important matriarchs, yet we rarely remember their recorded struggle to conceive. The first…
- 5779, Anger, Blessing, Boiling, Esau, Genealogy, Generations, Isaac, Jacob, Jewish Food, Komps Kaos, Parsha, Rebekah, Stew, Toldot, Twins
Boiling Point
There seems to be a lot of food in this parsha. When we talk about the word toldot, mostly people say, “Oh, that’s the generations” – “It’s all about their lineage” – “Those…
- Abraham, Bereshit, Chayyei Sarah, Death, Descendants, Genealogy, Generations, Isaac, Kaddish, Life, Mourning, Parsha, Pittsburgh, Rebekah, Sarah, Synagogues
Lifecycle
Every year we talk about the irony of this week’s parsha: Chayei Sarah, or the life of Sarah. In reality, the only thing we are told about Sarah’s life is the number of…
- Bereshit, Chanukah, Chanumas, Christmas, Dreams, Dreidel, Egypt, Genealogy, Generations, Jacob, Joseph, Judah, Light, Menorah, Parsha, Pharaoh, Potiphar, Prison, Tamar, Vayeishev
A Trustworthy Light
This week our family enjoyed celebrating the festivals of light together. We shared the timeless stories of the Bible (including the apocryphal books of Maccabees), we lit the menorah, spun dreidels, watched videos,…
- Abraham, Advent, Bereshit, Chayyei Sarah, Death, Family, Genealogy, Generations, Isaac, Life, Parsha, Rebekah, Sarah, Stories, Thanksgiving
Matriarch Madness
This week has been…yeah, a week and a half! Between school assignments, eight hours of driving, and hanging out with family, my post on Parashat Chayei Sarah didn’t get done last weekend. And…
- Babel, Bereshit, Confusion, Covenant, Current Events, Election, Flood, Genealogy, Generations, Noach, Parsha, Questions, Rain, Rainbow, Septuagint, Stories, Voting
Floods, Confusion, & Elections
Welcome to the tensest weekend of 2016 – thanks to the upcoming election (in which over 31 million people have early voted). I think the parsha for the U.S. diaspora must be feelin’…