Vol. 35:4

A historical reconstruction of the coup that ended the House of Omri, set against the struggle for Ramoth-gilead and the wider contest between Aram and a rising Assyria. Traces how religious, social and economic grievances — focused above all on Jezebel — created the opening for a rebellion mounted by the military establishment against King Joram.

Examines the anachronistic midrashic tradition, found in Targum Yonatan and the Yalkut Shimoni, that identifies Balaam with Laban the Aramean — figures separated by generations and by geography. Surveys the objections raised by Ibn Ezra and others, and the figurative readings offered in their place, from shared mastery of sorcery to kabbalistic accounts of Laban, Balaam and Amalek as the dross of the universe.

Sets the Balaam narrative of Numbers 22-24 beside Shakespeare's creation of Shylock. Both were gentile poets of great gift, each set a task against the Jews; Balaam's curses were turned to blessings by direct Divine intervention. Argues from the text of The Merchant of Venice — and from Shakespeare's familiarity with the Geneva Bible, published two decades before the play — that a comparable redirection of a poet's intentions can be traced in the drama itself.

Four pairs of biblical doctrines that appear logically opposed — a God both transcendent and immanent, Providence alongside freedom of choice, universalism alongside particularism, and the priest as guardian of ritual beside the prophet as guardian of social ethics. Drawing on Kadushin's organismic account of value concepts, the article argues these are not contradictions to be resolved but a duality essential to a living faith, echoing the talmudic verdict on Hillel and Shammai.

Challenges the familiar claim that the Hebrew prophets championed ethics over ritual and universalism over national particularity. Surveying Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets, the article finds ritual observance and national destiny bound together throughout — Malachi's much-quoted "have we not all one father" turns out to serve an argument against intermarriage — and concludes that the prophets were neither liberals nor radicals but realists.

The three cryptic verses at Exodus 4:24-26 leave unresolved who was threatened with death, which son was circumcised, and why Zipporah rather than Moses performed the act. Rashi, Targum Jonathan, Ibn Ezra and Abraham ben HaRambam each answer differently. Proposes reading the episode allegorically instead, with Moses' formation between an Egyptian palace and a Midianite priest's household as the key to what the passage is doing.

Asks why fourteen of Genesis's fifty chapters are given to Joseph, who receives no direct revelation, builds no altars and offers no sacrifices, yet is known as HaTzaddik. The answer offered is that Joseph is the Jewish Everyman — the figure who must read God's will in ordinary events rather than explicit instruction — making his life the primary model for Jewish conduct in every later generation.

A short reflection on the verb vayifga in Jacob's two encounters with angels, and on the midrash reading Makom not as a place but as a name for God — so that Jacob came upon not a mere campsite but the Lord of all space. Asks whether faith arrived at by surprise can be relied upon, and suggests that exploring Judaism deliberately beats waiting to stumble across it.

A report on the televised Independence Day contest in Jerusalem, in which 61 high school students from 34 countries competed after winning regional contests — with Colombia, Macedonia and Peru entering for the first time. Yishai Gaspan was declared the winner after a tie-break judged by former president Yitzhak Navon.

A response to Stuart Krauss on the meaning of ger, arguing that Deuteronomy 29 includes the stranger not merely in particular mitzvot but in the Covenant itself, and citing Yehezkel Kaufmann's conclusion that the Torah was given to non-Israelites from the beginning.