by Rabbi Corinne Copnick

From Darkness to Light

For the last couple of years, I have been receiving an online daily Talmud excerpt (in Hebrew Daf Yomi) from the Aleph Society – in English! It is available in Hebrew too. What’s remarkable are the clear and brilliant insights from Rabbi Adin Steinsalts. Now, under the auspices of the Koren Publishers, he has just published an English/Hebrew text of the Torah, accompanied by his own commentary.

For example, how long is the day that Genesis defines? Why does darkness precede light??  Aleph just sent out the following online sample of this great rabbi’s thinking:

“Reading from the very first lines of Genesis, he [Steinsaltz] asks: Where does the day begin?

Intuitively it begins with morning’s first light…The biblical account of Creation, however, indicates that the unit of time known as day begins in the evening, so that darkness precedes light…The day begins with the evening and continues through the morning light, just as the beginning of all existence was hidden in its absence. This idea also conveys a message of hope: From a dark and concealed beginning light shall emerge.”

This Torah text  (Hebrew and English text on opposite pages) with  commentary and letters large enough to read easily will be available or purchase online after Simchat Torah. A complete version of the Tenakh is planned for 2019.