Bible/Torah Archives - Vegetating with Leslie

The Wilderness of Sinai – BaMidbar

On: June 7, 2022July 10, 2022 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, 2020May 29, 2023 By: Leslie Cook

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

Walking Between the Raindrops

On: March 29, 2020March 6, 2021 By: Leslie Cook

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to share in services and Torah discussion on Zoom with a group from my synagogue. Our Torah discussion crystallized some thoughts I have about a set of themes that seem to compete in the Torah. The

On: March 1, 2020June 16, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

In The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein coins the word, “Interbeing,” a knowledge “that my being partakes of your being and that of all beings. This goes beyond interdependency—our very existence is relational . . . that

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 20, 2020December 26, 2022 By: Leslie Cook

The sixth day of creation, God made wild beasts…cattle…all kinds of creeping things…And God said, Let us make man in our image.

Chapter Two: Cain and Abel – From Abundance to Scarcity & Competition

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: October 27, 2019March 1, 2020 By: Leslie Cook

My purpose in writing The Animals’ Story in the Torah is to discover a story the text tells that varies from the single one so many of us learned or heard about “what the Bible says.” The story I want to focus