This volume consists of studies on the weekly Torah reading by members of the faculty of Bar-Ilan University. These studies reflect Bar-Ilan University scholarship at its best  a unique combination of Torah scholarship and knowledge of traditional Jewish sources with excellence in the sciences and humanities. The studies in this volume present novel insights into the weekly Torah readings in light of diverse aca?demic disciplines, syn?the?sizing the sacred with the secular and the spiritual with the scientific.

Bar-Ilan University, which just celebrated its jubilee year, is the largest institution of higher edu?cation in Israel. The Universitys unique message about the importance of integrating Torah study with general knowledge is being embraced by increasingly large numbers of Israelis. In these times of strife and division, Bar-Ilan University presents a rare model of cooperation and mutual respect between religious and nonreligious Jews, of the cen?trality of Jewish tradition combined with an aspiration for academic excellence.


Professor Leib Moscovitz is Associate Professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He received his BA and MA from Yeshiva University and his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was ordained as a rabbi by the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He is the author of Talmudic Reasoning: From Casuistics to Conceptualization, as well as dozens of scholarly articles.