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Mar 23, 2022, 5:45 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Shemini–P is for Poet

I shall resist the temptation to dive into the notorious story of God zapping Aharon’s sons for bringing inappropriate incense in the Dwelling (Tabernacle). The reasons for their strange action have been speculated on for centuries. Instead, I would...

Mar 16, 2022, 4:32 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Tzav

The reading this week enumerates six different varieties of animal sacrifices, a detailed description of the priests’ vestments, and the ceremony consecrating Aharon and his sons. Perhaps lost in all the cultic terminology is an example of how the...

Mar 10, 2022, 7:34 AM

Fox Tales: Parashat Vayyikra

Years ago, as a graduate student, I came across an edition of the Bible called The Dartmouth Bible, originally published in 1950, in which the editors sought to cut away passages they felt were either extraneous or irrelevant to...

Mar 3, 2022, 6:11 AM

Fox Tales: Parashat Shekalim–Up-Tempo

This week, as the book of Exodus comes to a conclusion, it does so with particular attention to the construction process of the divine “Dwelling” (sometimes termed the “Tabernacle” in English). Continuing from the previous week, where the main...

Feb 24, 2022, 8:30 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Vayak’hel

The final two weeks of readings in the book of Exodus return to a topic that was encountered earlier, before the Golden Calf episode and the renewed laws that accompany it: the building instructions for the “Dwelling” (Tabernacle). There,...

Feb 16, 2022, 11:39 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Ki Tissa–The Tablets

Many people are familiar with the parody scene in Mel Brooks’s “History of the World: Part I,” where, as Moses, he holds three large stone tablets and declaims, “The Lord…has given unto you these fifteen…” only to drop one,...

Feb 9, 2022, 4:58 AM

Fox Tales: Parashat Tetzaveh–Let There Be Light

This week’s reading, the second having to do with the wilderness “Dwelling” or Tabernacle, spends a good deal of time on the priestly garments, especially Aharon’s as “Great Priest” (High Priest). There are several things of note here. First,...

Feb 2, 2022, 7:47 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Terumah–The Boat, the Basket and the Box

Popular misconceptions abound regarding the Bible, and are often reflected in translation. Adam’s apple is not on the Tree of Knowledge, but rather only in his throat (the Latin translation could not resist the association of “evil” with “apple,”...

Jan 26, 2022, 5:25 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Mishpatim — The Rhetoric of Law

This week’s reading largely consists of a long enumeration (three chapters) of what modern society would see as civil, criminal, and religious laws. Embedded in that list is a remarkable passage, Exodus 22:21-23, that deals with a category of...

Jan 20, 2022, 6:30 PM

Fox Tales: Parashat Yitro–A Nation of Laws

The key figure at the beginning of this week’s reading is Yitro (English Jethro), priest of Midian and Moshe’s father-in-law. He appears twice in the book: first, in chapter 2, he welcomes the fugitive from Egyptian justice and gives...

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About Me

I'm the Allen M. Glick Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University, Worcester, MA. I've published translations of The Five Books of Moses and The Early Prophets.