26:1-12. A famine forces Isaac to Philistia. When Isaac became too successful, he aroused the jealousy of the masses and was forced to leave the country.
26:5. four categories of commandments, … my safeguards, my commandments, my decrees, my Torahs. … Just as an embryo grows from a seed that is implanted as conception, so too God’s teachings plant a seed, so to speak, which develops in the recipient to an ever-greater consciousness of good.
26:19-22. Wells also symbolize the spiritual wealth that is hidden beneath the layers of human smugness, materialism, and laziness.
26:20. They quibbled in the exact style that has been used against the Jews in Exile throughout the centuries: “Yes, you dug the well; the hole belongs to you, but the water is ours!”
26:29. as have anti-Semites through the ages, that their acts of harassment were justifiable, or that Isaac should be grateful that they took out their wrath against his wells and not against his person.
27:1-4. Isaac felt that it was Esau who needed blessings to arm him in his struggle against an inborn nature that tended toward bloodshed and other cardinal sins, whereas Jacob had the inner strength to grow and be holy without the assistance of the blessings.
27:1. The greater a person is, the more sensitive he is to evil. Isaac, more than anyone else, was affected by the idolatrous incense smoke that contaminated his surroundings.
27:5-17. Thus, both brothers were to engage in difficult tasks to earn the blessings: Esau was at the hunt risking his life, and Jacob was at home risking his soul, his spiritual essence.
27:40. Since the Roman Empire, conqueror of the world, was descended from Esau, the fulfillment of this blessing is obvious.
28:9. … oblivious to all but his own desires.
28:10-22. Shem had lived in the generation of the Flood and Eber had lived with those who built the Tower of Babel. … God’s promise sustained him, but it was his own efforts that earned him the prophecy.
28:12. Jacob’s dream at Mount Moriah symbolized the future of the Jewish people and man’s ability to connect himself to God’s master plan. … Accordingly, the Torah, given at Sinai and taught by sages such as Moses and Aaron, is the bridge from heaven to earth. … Babylon’s angel climbed seventy rungs and then went down: Media’s angel fifty-two: Greece’s 130 – but the angel of Edom/Esau kept climbing indefinitely, symbolizing the current exile, which seems to be endless, symbolizing the current exile, which seems to be endless.
Jacob’s Uniqueness. The angels, which are God’s agents in carrying out God’s guidance of earthly affairs, constantly go up to heaven to receive His commands and then come back to earth to carry them out, as it were.
28:20. He meant to set an example that in time of danger or distress, one should bow to perform good deeds, which will be a source of merit to rescue one from trouble. … The righteous ask only for necessities; they have no need for luxuries.
28:21. He who dwells outside Eretz Yisrael is like one who has no God. – so dramatic is the difference in holiness between the Land and the rest of the world.
28:22. that a Jew should tithe not only his possessions, but also his time, by contributing tie to the service of worthy causes.
29:1-12. that wisdom is symbolized by the water below the ground; it is buried and hidden, but it is accessible to those who understand that it is vital to life and worthy of the intense effort needed to bring it to the surface. Women, too, represent wisdom: Wisdom of women builds her home. .. the human symbols of wisdom were associated with the earthly symbols of wisdom.
29:2. the base character of the Arameans. No one trusted another or allowed anyone a possible advantage.
30:38. when husband and wife unite, they must purge their minds of all impure thoughts and every element which is foreign or which concerns third parties. The degree of their moral and spiritual purity will affect the souls of their children.
- marauding
- impunity
- clod
- cloven – cleave
- efficacious
- renegade
- stark
- homiletical
- flagrantly
- oblivious
- mendacious
- rogue
- vie
- coalesce
- propitious
- esoteric
- surreptitiously
- magnanimously
- mendacity
- proclivity
- derelict
- machinations
- vicariously
- dudaim
- dawned
- mandrakes
- occult
- runnels
- fecund