One of the most frequently asked questions about the Haggadah is why the second most important character in the exodus story (after G-d!) is never even mentioned. A number of answers have been offered to this problem: The most famous answer is that Moshe is deliberately omitted from the Haggadah because including him would distract from the true message of the exodus story, which is that G-d alone saved the children of Israel without human help (Vilna Gaon and lots of others)Moshe was the the …
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What are צפרדעים?
In the entire Tanach, the term צפרדע appears only in this section of the Torah and Tehillim 105:30 where it also refers to the second plague. It is an unusual word and may not actually be Hebrew. The traditional view is that this creature is the frog, and this is its meaning in modern Hebrew. Onkelos translates the term as עורדעניא which likely means frogs. However, there is no source in Hazal that clearly identifies צפרדעים as frogs and a surprisingly large number of commentators believed that …
Parshat Va’eira: ‘By my name HASHEM’
וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי יְהוָה׃ וָאֵרָא אֶל־אַבְרָהָם אֶל־יִצְחָק וְאֶל־יַעֲקֹב בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי וּשְׁמִי יְהוָה לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם׃ Translated literally, God’s opening statement to Moshe here reads as follows. ‘I am HASHEM. And I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzhaq, and to Ya’aqov as El Shaddai and my name HASHEM I was not known to them.’ This statement is difficult to parse on a grammatical level and also presents a major interpretative problem because numerous …
Parshat Shemot: Who are the Hebrews?
From Shemot 1:15 to 2:22, the children of Israel are referred to exclusively as ‘Hebrews’ (עבריים\עבריות). The term is used occasionally in the Tanakh, particularly in Shemot and Sefer Shmuel. The first incident of it being used is in Bereishit 14:13 where Avraham is referred to as ‘Avram the Hebrew’ when learning that Lot has been kidnapped by the four Kings who made war on Sodom. There are two possible etymologies for the term. The first is that it refers to the descendants of Ever (עבר), the …
