The Parsha Podcast - With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

The mission that Moshe was entrusted with in this week’s Parsha was very clear: Go to Egypt and extract the nation of Israelite slaves. The difficulty in the mission was not due to the lack of clarity. The instructions were abundantly clear. The mission, though, was highly implausible. Moshe had been out of Egypt for […]

We begin the new calendar year with a new book, the book of Exodus. The Jewish nation – still a family – is in Egypt, and things go from bad to worse. Pharaoh torments the people, enslaves them, and embitters their lives with back breaking labor. He then implements a policy of infanticide. But a […]

The Book of Exodus begins with the Egyptians cunningly enslaving their Hebrew subjects: mandating that they work in backbreaking labor, killing their male sons, and trying to stamp out their spirit and curb their population. But God heard their cries and saw their suffering and dispatched the greatest of all men, Moses, a reluctant leader, […]

Jacob’s life has been extremely chaotic. Forced to tussle with his twin. Jacob’s life got off to a rocky start. Compelled to usurp the blessings, Jacob had to flee. Laban’s house was hardly a refuge – it was 20 years of non-stop contention with the wiliest trickster of them all. After battling Esau’s angel, still […]

Parshas Vayechi marks the final installment of the book of Genesis. The family of Israel, the sons of Jacob, are all together in Egypt, where they settle and flourish. A lot happened to this family up to this point, and the setting for the next epoch of their story, and of Jewish history, is ready. […]