Feasts

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What does “Yom Teruah” mean?  What is it about?  How is it observed?  Why is it called Rosh Hashanah?  Why is this day a shabbat?  What do the blasts sound like? Yoel and Jono discuss these questions and we listen to the sounds of the shofar on Yom Teruah.

One of the common arguments in Documentary Hypothesis (DH) is that the Torah is built from many documents (E, J, JE, P, H and D) which were written by different authors, and were placed together by someone later in time to create the whole Torah we have today.  This division has driven most of the Biblical Studies world, and is taught in many schools with some to little criticism.  However, new documentation from the Ancient Near East (ANE) has shown that at least some of the assumptions of the system are incorrect, and in some cases detached from historical discourse.

When you try to find a meaning of a word, sometimes the meaning cannot be found in a dictionary, but in a book of a different nature.  I was reading M. Weinfeld’s book on justice in the ancient world and found an interesting interpretation of the word יובל Yovel– Jubilee. 

The term בין הערביים –Beyin Ha’Arbayim is temporal construct form used to describe a specific time of day, and found in several places in the Bible.  One of the most important places it is used is in connection to the time of the Pesach sacrifice as prescribed in Exodus 12:6.  This term has created many arguments over when to do things, and in fact has raised the question of how does the Torah understand time in overall.

A question which I deal with every year, but do not have a conclusive answer:  How old did the Pesach lamb have to be?

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Take a detailed stroll through the opening verses of Exodus 12 as Yoel teaches this Passover text to the weekly group Hebrew Bible Class.  You will hear the Hebrew text read, translated and explained according to the ancient culture.

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The book of Esther presents a story that is celebrated every year in the holiday of Purim.  Yoel and Jono discuss Esther & Mordechai’s names, the historic accuracy of the book, walk us through the profound events with the Persians and how the holiday is celebrated.

A key point to consider when discussing the Hoshana ceremony is the historical context: by the time this practice was taking shape, many Jews had already refrained from vocalizing the divine name. This is critical in understanding the subtle ways the name of God was hinted at in prayers and rituals. The custom of not uttering God’s name is thought by some scholars to have developed as early as the 3rd or even 4th centuries BCE, although it is often mistakenly attributed to later rabbinic decrees.

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“We were taken out of Egypt to make sure we receive the promise to Abraham of the good land…  The days of Sukkot are actually a celebration of the gift and the goodness that God gives us by allowing us to sit on the land.”  Yoel and Jono Vandor discuss the textual evidence and traditional opinions of what 

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How do we know we are to fast?  What constitutes afflicting the soul in the Rabbinic world?  Is Blood Required For All Atonement?  Yoel answers these questions as well as