Genesis 39:6-20 6 And Joseph was handsome and good looking. 7 And it came to pass after these things, that his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. 8 But he refused, and said to his master’s wife, Behold,…
Wrestling With the Angel Genesis 32:22-33 22 So went the present before him; and he himself lodged that night in the camp. 23 And he rose that night, and took his two wives, and his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and passed over…
Genesis 28:10-22 10 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and remained there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his…
The Stolen Blessing – Supportive Text The Stolen Blessing: Esav’s Blessing – Supportive Text
Because of the fundamental importance of the entire chapter 22, each mundane episode can be fruitfully examined. In 2018, I completed a series of thirty paintings that focus on each verb in the narrative entitled Akeidah Verbs. Additional Texts: Richard McBee’s Akedah Series: Reimagining and…
Rashi: Sarah’s death is juxtaposed with the Binding of Isaac because through hearing the news of the Binding—that her son was readied for slaughter and was nearly killed—her soul flew away and she died. Vayikra Rabba, 20:2: “…for Isaac then returned to his mother and…
Because of the nature of God’s test of Abraham, it is considered as if Abraham actually slaughtered Isaac. In the Rosh Hashana Machzor, in the chazzan’s repetition of Shacharis, a piyut declares: “They are confident in the ashes of [Isaac] who was bound like a…
The links, emotional and theological, between a God who would demand the unthinkable of Abraham and a God who hid His face during the Holocaust seemed overwhelming. Additional Texts: Richard McBee’s Akedah Series: Reimagining and Reconfiguring Jewish Art by Matthew Baigell The Binding of Isaac: Genesis…
The shattered father and son relationship was an early subject. In spite of the traditional commentaries that maintain that Abraham and Isaac were united in doing God’s will, it always seemed to me that the near-death experience of Isaac at the hands of his father…
Among the earliest images I created were reflections of the synagogue fresco series from Dura Europos, dated ca. 235 C.E. and discovered in 1932, that depicted around the Torah niche the Akeida; Abraham, Isaac, the ram, and a figure in a tent doorway. Our tradition…