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of Rabbi Moshe Pitchon

The Commentaries

A Guide for the Confused
June 11, 2024 1Comment

Israel did not enter Gaza with the intention of killing Palestinians, just as the Palestinians entered Israel with the intention of killing as many Israelis as possible (without regard for other nationals). Israel’s intention is to free those who were kidnapped and to retribute the direct perpetrators for their atrocities.

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What’s in for Me?
April 11, 2024 0Comments

“ Our country doesn’t have a problem with Jews. Our Prophet Muhammad married a Jewish woman. Not just a friend—he married her. Our neighbors were Jewish,”

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Is Demography Destiny?
April 11, 2024 0Comments

Though Israel is still a secular country where secular Jews account for 36 percent of the population
it is estimated that by 2059, the Haredi community will constitute 35% of the Jewish population in Israel.”

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When a Jewish Fundamentalist Becomes a Powerful Minister
April 11, 2024 0Comments

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תנ׳׳ך

TaNaKh

Reading the Book of Exodus-שמות Today

An Incident in a Small Middle Eastern Tribe

TaNaKh April 13, 2024 0Comments
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What really happened that night, on that day hundreds and hundreds of years ago, when the Book of Exodus tells us that

Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt… And he called for Moses and Aaron by night and said: ‘Rise up, get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.’

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The Hyksos

TaNaKh April 11, 2024 0Comments
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“…we cannot ignore the possible inclusion of the expulsion of the Hyksos in the source materials which was available for literary activities. One may assume that the Hyksos experience was retold in different ways and in different circles through time. This is not to say that the Hyksos experience should be identified with the story about the Israelites living Egypt. However, the Hyksos event could have been part of the … common tradition which the biblical narrator used for background […] exodus and the consequent wanderings in the wilderness are part of a historical chain of happening and traditions […]”

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Line- by- line Biblicaltext and commentaries: https://www.21stcenturyjudaism.com/the-book-of-exodus/
https://www.21stcenturyjudaism.com/the-book-of-exodus/

Jewish Holidays

The Passover Message
April 11, 2024 0Comments

The unpredictable, inexplicable help that we encounter   With the exodus from Egypt, something radically new happened: history took an unexpected turn, and the world suddenly changed. Exodus, the book that recounts this event, tells us that…

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A Gut Yomtef
April 21, 2024 2Comments

Pessah 2024 The incommensurable suffering of the families and the hostages of the October 7 pogrom; the orphans, widows, parents, brothers, and sisters of the soldiers dying in the war Hamas has imposed upon Israel; the 300…

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Jewish Theology

God’s “Absence” in Egypt
God’s “Absence” in Egypt
April 11, 2024 0Comments

“The four centuries in Egypt pass without a tale worth telling. As with much of Israel’s desert period and the later Babylonian captivity, the Bible considers this sojourn devoid of noteworthy events.”
This kind of historical “blackout” has driven critics to ask: “What was God doing during those years the Israelites suffered under the Egyptians?”

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