Six varieties of fruit served not merely as food for the ancient Israelites but as symbols that feature prominently in biblical names, laws, proverbs, and traditions.

A literary and political masterpiece, the book of Deuteronomy deserves to be appreciated both for its final theological teaching and in light of the transformative. . .

Some biblical scholars interpret the story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) as a case of sacred prostitution. Their reading is supported neither by textual. . .

The admonition against oppressing the stranger, which opens this week’s Torah portion, is a far from obvious response to the Israelites’ experience of enslavement in Egypt.

Featured in this week’s Torah portion is the Bible’s most famous teaching, which is less a founding legal code than an ethical paradigm for every. . .

The 19th-century commentator known as the Malbim provides a template for how traditional biblical interpretation can adapt to scientific discovery.

Why does God command the Israelites to deceive the Egyptians on three separate occasions during the Exodus?

In preparation for the exodus from Egypt, an apparent non-sequitur in this week’s Torah portion points to a crucial shift in the Israelite leadership:. . .

The Torah is silent on the details of Moses’ forty-year year sojourn in Midian, suggesting a period of ascetic retreat that God forces him. . .

Six heroines, women of courage and conscience, figure in this week’s Torah portion. Without them, there would not have been a Moses.

This week’s Torah portion pinpoints the real grief in sibling violence: the grief that children cause their parents.

Two-hundred-fifty years ago today, a procession in Newport, R.I., carried three Torah scrolls to what is now the oldest synagogue building in the United States.

Hanukkah reminds us that while both the Hebrew prophets and the Greek philosophers had a divine mission, the mission was not the same. (1967)

A recent book claims otherwise, but we possess far too little evidence to make confident claims about what ancient Jews accepted as Scripture before the rabbinic period.