Comments for Larrykaufman's Weblog

Comment on About by Sybil Schwartz

Sybil Schwartz — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:09:33 +0000

I’ve wondered your origin…are you superacademic, superRabbi, superscholar, superblogger, compulsive writer, …I guess all of the aforementioned..
have appreciated you well thought out interesting blogs on the URJ website..thank you for taking the time to write the blurbs..

Comment on Talking Toldot by Harpooner

Harpooner — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:58:26 +0000

Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation Anyway … nice blog to visit.

cheers, Harpooner.

Comment on Talking Toldot by Monica

Monica — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:37:36 +0000

Thank you for this interesting take on this family, and for the linguistic insights.

The tradition certainly blackens Eisav’s hat and whitens Ya’akov’s; a plain reading is much more ambiguous, as you point out. I hadn’t considered Ya’akov as “tam” before. He might be in the blessings incident, but how should we read the birthright incident in that case? Ya’akov seems to be an opportunist with — dare I say it — pretty unwholesome morals.

On the other hand, he got swindled pretty thoroughly by Lavan, which doesn’t make him sound too clever. Here’s an idea, purely out of my head and not backed by sources: could his encounter with God have swung the pendulum, from swindler to tam before finally settling in the middle 20 years later?