Skip to content
ס
Sevara
·
סברא
Torah, reasoned.
Search
Switch to dark mode
Switch to light mode
Parasha
Philosophical Reflection
Talmudic & Halakhic Study
Kitzur Halachot
Parasha
Lech Lecha
Genesis 12:1 – 17:27
4 chapters · 25 min read ·
18 October 2026
Listen on Spotify
Download PDF
Share
Also available in
עברית
·
Français
Start reading
Contents
1
Finding Our Bearings
Why is “left” sometimes north in the Bible? Why did Jabotinsky call Transjordan the “left”? And what does the Temple rule mean, “all the turns you make should only be to the right”? A journey through directions, maps, clocks and circuits.
2
The River of Egypt
The Torah promises Abraham the land “from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.” What is the river of Egypt: the Nile, or Wadi el-Arish? And what happened when a scribe got the river’s name wrong in a bill of divorce written in the town of Eibenschütz?
3
The Sandak, the Gaon and Common Sense
There is a custom not to give the honor of sandak twice to the same person, because it “brings wealth,” like the incense in the Temple. The Vilna Gaon rejected this with common sense: “We have never seen a sandak grow rich.” And what does this teach us about segulot in general?
4
Halakha and Reality: Three Kinds of Wrongdoing
Three times in Genesis, one of the Patriarchs says of his wife, “She is my sister.” The three stories describe three layers of sin: punishment for a deliberate sin, “sin” (chata’ah) for an unintentional one, and “guilt” (asham) when there is no sin at all, but reality has been damaged. Hence also the difference between the chatat offering, which atones for the person, and the asham offering, which repairs reality.
עב
FR
EN