A friend recently asked me an intriguing question about Genesis 14:10, where the Valley of Sidim is described as full of tar pits - בארת בארת חמר. He noticed something remarkable: the word for tar, חמר (chemar), has the same numerical value as both "womb" (רחם) and "Abraham" (אברהם). All equal 248. What could this connection mean? The answer reveals something beautiful about how Hebrew works as a language of creation. Letters as Atoms of Reality Think about water. We know it as H₂O - two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. This formula doesn't tell us what water tastes like, but it reveals water's essential structure. Hebrew works similarly. The word for water is מ-י-ם (mayim). The structure itself is revealing: two מ mem letters embrace a single י  yod... Read More

The Illusion We Never Outgrow: When "By Myself" Becomes Our Greatest Delusion Have you seen a toddler learning to tie their shoes? Their tiny fingers fumble with the laces, and when you reach out to help, they push your hands away with fierce determination: "Alleine!" the German child insists. "Alone!" cries the English-speaking tot. "Be'atzmi!" (בעצמי) declares the Hebrew speaker, literally, "by my self." This moment - this universal declaration of independence - is one of the crucial milestones of childhood. We smile at their determination. We celebrate their growing autonomy. We see it as progress, as development, as the emergence of a person. But what if this moment, so precious and so celebrated, contains within it the seed of our deepest confusion about reality? What if... Read More

A friend once told me in Germany during Christmas: "Don't go to the forest at night, it's dangerous." In that moment, something miraculous happened. An entire world appeared before me: dark trees, shadowy paths, hidden threats. None of it was physically there, yet it became vividly present. A whole reality materialized through a few spoken words. This is the miracle of language. What is it about words that suddenly conjures worlds in front of us? How does speech create presence out of absence? The prophets understood this power. They used language to mobilize entire nations, not through force, but through נביעה של נבואה, a spring of prophecy. The word wells up from hiddenness (העלם), bursts forth as expression (הבעה), and transforms consciousness. Heidegger, in his... Read More

Q: Why Havdalah Ends the Shabbat with Fragrance? A: If you happened to walk into a place in Israel just as Saturday night begins, you might catch something unexpected: a cup of wine, a braided candle and the sharp, sweet scent of myrrh filling the air. Eyes close. People inhale deeply, as if drawing in something precious before it slips away. This is Havdalah—literally "distinction"—the ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat. The Nose Knows: A Matter of Life and Death Rabbi Elazar of Worms offers a fascinating insight in his writings. He points out that dogs possess an extraordinary ability to detect life behind walls, from remarkable distances. A dog can sense people buried beneath snow or rubble. In the aftermath of earthquakes, floods, or bombed-out buildings, dogs can... Read More

Q: Why are evening and morning considered one day? A: "And there was evening, and there was morning - one day." One day is one continuous being. Evening and morning are not separate moments strung together, not cause and effect - they are two expressions of the same presence. The text does not say evening caused morning or morning followed evening. It says they together form one day. They are unified, like breath in and breath out. "The morning is like a child: new, open, present. It emerges without striving, without plan - it simply is, alive and uncalculated. The Hebrew word for evening is neshef (נשף), from the verb nashaf, meaning to exhale or blow. So the night is the exhale and the morning is the inhale, but neither causes the other. They are two movements of the same breath,... Read More

Q: What is the meaning of the name Oved? A: The child born to Ruth is named Oved (עובד), from the Hebrew root ע-ב-ד (ayin-bet-dalet). This root carries a double meaning: to work and to serve. It is the same verb used when God places Adam in the Garden "to work it and keep it" (לעבדה ולשמרה). But something shifts between Adam's avodah and Oved's. Adam's turning point was not only disobedience, but a transformation in his mode of being. He moved from presence into calculation, from immediate participation in life into weighing, measuring, and accounting for gain and loss. The moment cost-benefit thinking entered, presence was lost. The verb עבד—which can mean both "to work" and "to worship"—became fractured. Work separated from worship. Labor became separated... Read More

When Abraham is told “Lech lecha”,לך-לך “go for yourself”ת and to leave Ur of the Chaldeans, this is not only a geographical departure. It is also a movement of consciousness. Ur is a city of fire: kilns, bricks, furnaces, crafted light ma’orei esh, מאורי אש light that is produced, controlled, and sustained by human making. Fire gives light, but it also consumes. It needs fuel. It depends on constant effort. Abraham is asked to step away from that world, from light that is manufactured, and to walk toward something else: ma’orei or מאורי אור. Not light that is made, but light that is. Light as a given condition of being, not as a product. This is why the call is toward the El Chai אל-חי the Living God. Not a god of fire and force, not a manufactured... Read More