Jeff Jaffe

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Nov 23, 2024, 11:04 PM

The Blessings: Why did Isaac want Esau to have dominion over Jacob?

As Isaac neared death, he decided to bless his children. He intended to give one blessing to Esau which is found in Gen 27:28-29. And he intended to give a different blessing to Jacob which is found on Gen...

Nov 17, 2024, 6:36 AM

The dilemma of Esau and Sealing the Decision to Choose the Patriarchs

In When was Abraham chosen? we demonstrated that Abraham was not selected to be the progenitor of the Chosen People until he completed all ten tests assigned by God. But we also asked whether the ten tests were enough...

Nov 5, 2024, 12:39 AM

When was Abraham chosen?

When Abrahan was asked to move to Canaan, God instantly provided a bounty of blessings to him, namely: he would become a great nation, be blessed, have a great name, Abraham will be a blessing, God will bless who...

Sep 26, 2024, 11:26 AM

Purpose of the description of the battle of the nine kings

There is a long discussion in Chapter 14 of Genesis about four kings fighting five kings. What is the cosmic importance of this chapter that there is so much text in the Torah about this vignette? The battle of the...

Sep 12, 2024, 10:31 PM

When did God decide to have a Chosen People?

Between Creation and Abraham, there were nearly two thousand years of civilization without a Chosen People. When exactly did God decide to identify the Chosen People? Did He always plan on having a Chosen People? That is part of...

Aug 28, 2024, 11:02 PM

The Ten Tests of Abraham

The Mishna tells us (Ethics of the Father 5:3) that God tested Abraham ten times. But, the Mishna does not list what the tests were. It seems like a foundational part of our faith is underspecified. What were the goals...

Aug 14, 2024, 9:19 PM

Chapter 12 of Genesis begins with God making extraordinary commitments to Abraham (blessings, land). Why? How did Abraham merit such a massive gift? When the Torah introduces Abraham, there are no precursor heroic deeds and not even an assertion that he...

Sep 4, 2021, 12:41 AM

Why Is Genesis the Torah of All Nations?

When we discussed respect for parents , we derived a Noahide imperative of respect from the story of Noah and his sons. When we discussed the Sabbath, we derived a Noahide imperative to respect sanctity from the mention of...

Aug 8, 2021, 10:36 PM

The Noahide laws and the Sabbath

We have been discussing why the seven Noahide laws do not include all of the themes of the Ten Commandments. After all, if these are the most significant commandments, shouldn’t all people be so obligated? This is especially puzzling because...

Jul 21, 2021, 7:17 AM

The Ten Commandments and the Noahide Laws

Christians revere the Jewish Bible and refer to it as the Old Testament. Primary reverence is provided to the Ten Commandments - God’s direct revelation to the Jews at Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus. The reverence is...

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About Me

Jeff Jaffe is the author of "Genesis: A Torah for all Nations", and "Why Abraham", published by Gefen Publishing House. Previously he had several executive positions in the area of information technology including: Chief Executive Officer of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT, IBM's Corporate VP of Technology, President of Research and Advanced Technologies at Bell Labs, and EVP/CTO of Novell. Dr. Jaffe holds a doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.