The parsha about Jacob's death is named "And He Lived." Somewhere along the Gaza fence, a rubber duck is squeaking. Both things are true at once.

Joseph told his brothers: come forward to me. The whole parsha runs on that verb. This week in Israel, we came.

Joseph's brothers saw an Egyptian official. The Greeks saw a provincial temple. Sometimes the miracle is right in front of you, hidden in plain sight.

The parsha called "And He Settled" is the one where everything falls apart. The dwelling was never in the walls.

Jacob wrestled all night and walked into dawn with a new name and a limp. Both were permanent. Names don't describe who you are — they describe who you're becoming.

Leah named her son Yehuda — "I will give thanks." That name became Jew. We are the people named for thank you.

Isaac dug his father's wells, gave them the same names, and kept digging when people filled them in. The quietest patriarch has the most to teach.

A parsha called "The Life of Sarah" opens with her death. Everything that follows — the land, the bride, the comfort — is the life.

Sarah laughed twice in Genesis. Once in disbelief, once holding her son. She named him for the distance between the two.

God told a seventy-five-year-old man with no children to leave everything and go. He went. The name he arrived with wasn't the one he left with.

The rabbis can't agree whether Noah was great or just adequate. Five months into being Jewish, that question reads differently than you'd expect.

The Torah doesn't begin with paradise. It begins with chaos. The distance between tohu vavohu and tov me'od is six days of work — and then rest.