In considering Jacob’s actions in this week’s Torah portion, Vayishlach, in light of Israel’s ongoing war against the Hamas terrorists, it is worth reviewing emergent themes in the history of Jews and military conflict prior to 1948.

In the collection of traditions known as Bereshit Rabbah, the Jewish sages offered a radical reading of the patriarch Jacob’s starry night. In it they sensed the scientific formula for nothing less than Jewish survival.

The rabbinic renderings of Og should serve as a helpful guide to those composing the coming generation of screen content.

In Koren’s threefold cord of commentaries on Kohelet, seasons of students have been given interpretive riches with which to sharpen their thinking as they turn the pages of the musings of a monarch from millennia ago — about life, its limits, its possibilities, and what truly matters under the sun.