Vol. 49:2
A comparative study of the legendary staff transmitted from Adam through the patriarchs to Moses, tracing its parallels in the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone, Christian traditions of the wood of the cross, and an Islamic legend about Lot. The article argues that across these traditions, a chosen leader is authenticated by performing a feat no one else can — pulling a staff or sword from where it is fixed — and that the staff's engraved letters and its chain of custody through history mark it as a symbol of authority, power, and hierarchy.
Jewish tradition faced a theological problem: Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple and exiled the Judeans yet continued to reign as a successful monarch, a fact the relatively nuanced portrait in Daniel 1-6 does not fully redress. This article traces how midrashic sources — Pesikta Rabbati, Yalkut Shimoni, Pesikta de Rav Kahana — respond by literalizing the 'lowest of men' language of Daniel 4:14 into a comic image of Nebuchadnezzar as a literal dwarf, unable to reach the harps the exiled Levites hung in the trees of Psalm 137. The midrash is read as a bridge between the court tales of Daniel 1-6 and the apocalyptic visions of Daniel 7-12, restoring the emotional reality of exile that the Book of Daniel itself underplays.
The donkey episode of Numbers 22:21-35 sits awkwardly inside the Balaam narrative: elsewhere Balaam insists he can only say what God permits, yet here he appears to defy God outright. Reading the episode against three motifs shared with the Exodus story — the divine granting of speech, the sword on the prophet's road, and the enemy's confession of sin — this article argues that the donkey story is not a redundant insertion but the moment Balaam is disabused of the idea that his speech, unlike his movements, is his own to control. Balaam emerges not as a wavering or ambiguous figure but as an unwilling instrument of a God who, as with Pharaoh, overrides a foreign power's free will for Israel's benefit.
Genesis 37:2's account of the young Joseph bringing 'their evil report' to Jacob is read closely against classical and modern commentators to untangle who the 'evil report' concerns — the sons of Leah, the sons of the handmaids, or both. Building on Ramban's insight that Joseph was caught between two separate rivalries, the article argues that the sons of the handmaids' shifting allegiance, from confiding in Joseph to joining his brothers' plot against him, is best explained by the abuse and reprisals they suffered at the hands of the Leah clan once their disclosures to Joseph became known — a reading supported by modern research on sibling abuse.
Jacob's blessings to his twelve sons in Genesis 49 are read as a deliberately uneven address whose ambiguities are not literary defects but a calculated strategy: to neutralize threats to family unity (Reuben, Simeon and Levi), to elevate a unifying leader (Judah) and an outstanding heir (Joseph) without provoking envy, and to secure the standing of the sons of the handmaids as full tribes. The article argues that Jacob's closing blessing of 'them' rather than 'him' signals that the individual gifts he assigns are meant to be shared across the tribes, so that individuation and interdependence become two sides of the same legacy.
Shepherding and shepherd metaphors for leadership pervade the Hebrew Bible, and this article argues that the same pastoral culture accounts for the prevalence of three standard instruments in the text: the kinnor (lyre), ugav (flute), and shofar (horn). Because the Bible is a theologically focused text that mostly records music-making in cultic or celebratory contexts, its everyday, non-cultic uses by ordinary shepherds are left as faint, indirect traces rather than explicit description. Drawing on organology, ancient Near Eastern iconography, and cross-cultural shepherd practices, the article reconstructs how each instrument likely functioned to calm flocks, signal fellow herders, and pass the time.
A review of Aaron Koller's Unbinding Isaac (JPS/University of Nebraska, 2020), which traces philosophical and theological responses to the Akedah from Kierkegaard's 'Knight of Faith' through Soloveitchik and Leibowitz to Koller's own reading via Maimonides. The review highlights Koller's central objection to Kierkegaard — that focusing on Abraham's faith erases Isaac as the story's actual victim — and his conclusion, following Maimonides and Joseph ibn Kaspi, that God only partially desired the sacrifice while fully desiring that Abraham not carry it out.
A review of Kenneth Seeskin's Thinking About the Prophets (JPS/University of Nebraska, 2020), part of the JPS Essential Judaism Series, which reads Amos, Hosea, First and Second Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Job through the lens of later philosophers including Maimonides, Kant, Hegel, Buber, and Soloveitchik. The review credits the book's introductory treatment of the question 'What is a Prophet?' while noting its limitation to a handful of the literary prophets, pointing readers wanting fuller coverage of figures like Samuel and Nathan to more comprehensive surveys.
A review of Rabbi Dr. Abba Engelberg's The Ethics of Numbers (Kodesh Press, 2020), the fourth volume of his series on the Pentateuch, which walks through the Book of Numbers largely through Talmudic and midrashic eyes, connecting episodes like the spies and Korach's rebellion to contemporary ethical dilemmas. The review appreciates the book's willingness to address the place of worldly pleasure in Jewish tradition and its treatment of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam's complementary leadership styles, while offering two alternative, simpler explanations of points the author reaches through more elaborate midrashic routes, and noting the work's lack of a clear methodological throughline.