Daughters of fathers are different from sons.

Daughters, as they grow, do not take on their father’s image. A daughter’s voice will not deepen into her father’s baritone. Her jaw will not sharpen to resemble his, and, in all likelihood, she will not reach his height. Rarely will anyone ever be startled when they encounter her on the street after her father’s death, thinking for a moment, because of their resemblance, that they are seeing a ghost.

The Talmud is notoriously complex, and its stories are no exception. In this class, we will learn strategies for how to understand these texts such as structural analysis, to explore the narrative flow and construction; interiority, to uncover the unstated emotions and motivations of the sages; and contextual analysis, to place each story within the broader tapestry of Talmudic and rabbinic literature. Through these and other tools, we’ll gain a richer understanding of the inner worlds of the sages, the ethical questions they grappled with, and how these tales continue to speak powerfully to our lives today.

Source sheet: https://mechonhadar.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/PassowReadingRabbis2025Part3.pdf

The moment when Bilaam can’t see the angel is familiar to us—too familiar for comfort.

We’ve seen this scene before: a hidden angel, an unusual occurrence, the word of God. We’ve seen it all at the burning bush (sneh), the moment when Moshe, our greatest prophet, receives his first mission: speech.