Lech Lecha Essays

[Reuven Chaim Klein]

Essays from my What’s in a Word? series related to Parshas Lech Lecha:

• Prime Property - About רכוש, מקנה, and נכסים.
• Dirt, Dust, and Ashes - About עפר, אפר, אבק, and דשן.
• Seeking Completion - About תם and שלם.
• A Laughing Matter - About צחוק and שחוק.
• The Princess' Gaze (Part 1 | Part 2) - About שרה, שרי, and יסכה.

Lectures about the connection between the Holy Land and the Holy Tongue:

• "Holy Land and Holy Language" - This lecture (delivered in Yeshivas Mir) explores the esoteric connections between the Holy Land (i.e. The Land of Israel) and the Holy Tongue (i.e. the Hebrew Language).
• "The Sacred Bond between Eretz HaKodesh and Lashon HaKodesh" - This lecture was the 2020 Avraham Tzvi Wertenteil Memorial Lecture for the Beit Chatam – Center for Torah and Jewish Studies in Rechovot. The lecture highlights various ways in which the connection between the Holy Land (Israel) and the Holy Language (Hebrew) in seen throughout the Book of Bereishis, and then it offers a definition of kedushah ("holiness") as it applies to those two sacred elements. [Also available on YouTube.]

Attached articles: 

• "Stamped with Holiness: Circumcision and the Sacred Power of Oaths," The Jerusalem Report (March 24, 2025).
• "Nahmanides' Understanding of Abraham's Mesopotamian Origins," Jewish Bible Quarterly vol. 44:4 (2016). [A different version of this essay appeared here on Seforim Blog.]

Kol Tuv,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

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