Author: Rabbi David Fohrman

Should we view the Ten Commandments as a mere list of rules—or does it have other dimensions of meaning?  How can we wrap our minds around the seemingly harsh and anachronistic biblical practice of female servitude? How should we make sense of midrashic tales as bizarre as the miraculous elongation of the arm of Pharaoh’s daughter?

In this second of five Parsha Companions, Rabbi David Fohrman delves into intriguing conundrums, using a unique set of tools. He asks questions that, in hindsight, seem like they were staring you in the face the whole time. He discerns nuance. He detects patterns in the original Hebrew that seem to leap off the page. And he shows how many of these discoveries, astoundingly, aren’t really “new” at all, but were suggested thousands of years ago by the ancient sages of the Talmud and Midrash themselves.  

Underneath Rabbi Fohrman’s approach to biblical text lies a simple conviction: inasmuch as reading a book is like having a conversation with its author, reading the Bible is like having a conversation with our Creator. When we read the Torah, therefore, we should do it the way we should converse with those who are deeply important to us:  stop talking so much; slow down…and just listen.