Category: derech-hayam

To understand why it is important for the Bible to state that King Yoshiyahu was killed at Megiddo, we will explain the historical and geopolitical background of the period. We will read the first historical testimony of the Battle of Megiddo by Thutmose III, found in an ancient inscription that recounts the war in detail.…

We will begin learning about the next stop on “Derech Hayam”: Megiddo. We will learn why Megiddo is so important in biblical times? We will learn about various events that occurred there and are told about in the Tanach, and as usual we will ask – what is the Tanach trying to teach us by…

Two symbolic and irrelevant stories in “Afek” and both for the same purpose. The story of the beaten prophet and the story of the beaten arrows, both are related to the idea of ​​”Afek” – disobeying the word of God and his prophet. Both came to teach an important message about combining divine action and…

One last battle in Afek during the time of King Yoash and the prophet Elisha, in which Yoash violates the prophet’s words and does not completely defeat his enemy. This enables us to summarize the message that emerges from all the Afek stories – in all of them there is a motif of not listening…

An interesting connection to this week’s parsha (Shelah) and current events: Just as God did not take the Israelites by the coast so that they would not experience war and be afraid, so perhaps Moshe told the spies to go up the mountain and not to reach the coast so that they would not experience…

Another battle took place in Afek – 150 years after the battles from the previous lecture, and in a different place. But if the Tanach indicates that this battle too was in Afek, it is to teach us something related to the message of the Afek. We will see on the map the unique topography…

This time too, we will compare two battles – the battle of Israel’s defeat at “Afek” and the battle of Israel’s defeat at Gilboa. They took place at different times and in different places, but the Tanach connects them – when it tells us, without any reason, that in the second battle too, the Philistines…

We will make a linguistic comparison between the two battles of “Even HaEzer”, which were 20 years apart and in different places, but the Tanach tells of them in adjacent chapters and calls the two places “Even HaEzer”. The Tanach conveys a clear message here: that Israel’s perception in the first battle – that the…