Bible/Torah Archives - Vegetating with Leslie

BaMidbar: The Wilderness of Sinai |Tough Love?

On: June 7, 2022July 8, 2023 By: Leslie Cook

Wilderness of Sinai. Why 40 years wandering? Google Maps says the walk Cairo-Jerusalem is 452 miles or 148 hours on foot.

A relationship story: biblical myth-making

On: May 1, 2020June 5, 2023 By: Leslie Cook

A relationship story unfolds in the anthropomorphisms of biblical mythology. Journey through biblical myth-making to find meaning.

Evolving Consciousness? I Don’t See It – Yet

On: February 24, 2020March 6, 2021 By: Leslie Cook

I had an interesting conversation the other day. It included something of a debate about who we are as human beings and the question, are we evolving or devolving? It seems to me the answer is yes — and no, depending on your

On: February 15, 2020January 10, 2021 By: Leslie Cook

All in the Family: Transactions וְהָ֣אָדָ֔ם יָדַ֖ע אֶת־חַוָּ֣ה אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ וַתַּ֙הַר֙ וַתֵּ֣לֶד אֶת־קַ֔יִן וַתֹּ֕אמֶר קָנִ֥יתִי אִ֖ישׁ אֶת־יְהוָֽה׃ Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gained a male child with the help of the LORD.” (Gen. 4:1)

On: January 21, 2020July 10, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

I began my current journey in biblical studies six years ago on a walk with my violence-averse husband. A dead and partially mutilated rabbit ended our stroll around the neighborhood with his exclamation of dismay. I asked why “these kinds of things,”

On: January 15, 2020June 16, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it’s been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient

On: March 25, 2019March 1, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

I haven’t written as much on the Torah portions after two years of working pretty steadily at them. With my focus on the relationship between human beings and other animals, it was inevitable that I would have to struggle with the “meaning”

On: December 7, 2018April 3, 2023 By: Leslie Cook

I read an article today in The Conversation that started me thinking. It talked about a demonstrable psychological link between those who believe in “creationism” and those who believe in conspiracy theories. The article reports that “The new study takes the role

On: August 7, 2018August 12, 2018 By: Leslie Cook

Five years ago when I started my blog, I wrote: “As we journey through our lives, we both eat and nourish, destroy and enrich. The great gift we have as human beings is that we can make conscious decisions about the balance

On: July 20, 2018July 21, 2018 By: Leslie Cook

I watched Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale over the last couple of weeks. Visually, it is beautiful. Emotionally, it is searing, sobering and thought-provoking. The book was written in 1985, and the Hulu series began in 2017. I hadn’t read the book or