果冻传媒

Hebrew’s Answer to Life’s Deepest Riddle

Sep 13, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Ki Tavo

The Bible’s most famous riddle was the brainchild of Samson. “Out of the eater came something to eat; out of the strong came something sweet” (Judges 14:14). Samson posed it on the occasion of his seven-day wedding feast to thirty young Philistine men who came to celebrate his marriage to one of their own. On the last day, the young men responded gleefully: “What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?” Dismayed, Samson accused them of coercing his bride: “Had you not plowed with my heifer, you would not have guessed my riddle.” And indeed, threatened by them with savage revenge, she had wheedled the answer out of Samson, only to betray him, exactly as Delilah would do later in his life.

Your Zeyde the Pilgrim

Sep 29, 2009 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Try to imagine your zeyde, born and bred in Lithuania, dressed as a Pilgrim. I did. Like any other American schoolchild, I learned how the Pilgrims came to these shores on the Mayflower, how they celebrated their first harvest together with the Wampanoag Indians, and how this celebration became the basis for our holiday of Thanksgiving. For reasons that were not clear to me at the time, I tried to picture my Litvak grandfather as a Pilgrim, but the moment I did I started laughing.

The Religious Value of Critical Study

Aug 28, 2010 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Parashat Ki Tavo begins with a description of the ceremony for bringing the first fruits to the Temple. As part of this ritual, the following is to be recited by the pilgrim bringing the produce:

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he descended to Egypt. There he became a great and mighty nation. The Egyptians did us harm and caused us suffering; they placed upon us the burden of hard labor. We called out to the Lord the God of our ancestors; God heard our voices, and He saw our suffering, our hard labor and our oppression. The Lord brought us forth from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with signs and with wonders. And he brought us to this place, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now behold I have brought the first fruits of the land that You have given to me. (Deut. 26:5�10)

The Lesson of the First Fruits

Sep 20, 2008 By Marc Wolf | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Remarkably, no pedestrian injuries have been recorded to date.

From Reflection to Appreciation

Sep 12, 2014 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Having underscored the role of memory at the conclusion of last week parashah (remembering the cruelty of Amalek), the Torah now accentuates the importance of appreciation in Parashat Ki Tavo.

Back to the Future

Sep 4, 2015 By 果冻传媒 Alumni | Commentary | Ki Tavo

By Dr. Jacqueline Gerber Lebwhol (GS ’17)

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Gabriel Garc铆a M谩rquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (trans. Gregory Rabassa)

My college modern literature professor often began class with a communal recitation of this sentence, and many readers consider it among the best first lines of any modern work. What makes this rather strange sentence so powerful?

淲hich You, O Lord, Have Given Me�

Aug 21, 2013 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Having underscored the role of memory at the conclusion of last week parashah (remembering the cruelty of Amalek), Torah now accentuates the importance of appreciation in Parashat Ki Tavo.

Reflective Learning in the Season of Teshuvah

Sep 12, 2014 By Jason Gitlin | Commentary | Ki Tavo

While the formal Hebrew title for each book of Torah is today derived from a word in its first verse, the Rabbis regularly employed a different logic: use a name that captured the book main theme.