To give you a taste of the book, here are some excerpts
from "Famous Biblical Phrases and What They Really Mean":
By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread (Genesis 3:19)
God's punishment of Adam after he and Eve eat form the Tree of
Knowledge. Colloquially, "go get a job." Of your seventy allotted
years, deduct the twenty-three spent sleeping and eleven and half
spent bathing and eating. That leaves thirty-six. Of those,
twenty-three (minimum) will be spent working, which leaves just
thirteen for loving, dreaming, thinking, planning, growing, singing,
dancing, reading. That's a curse.
You are dust and to dust you will return (Genesis 3:19)
Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being shot in the
morning. Death is a blessing because it forces us to distinguish
between the lasting and meaningful and the trivial and fleeting.
(Ever heard someone eulogized for driving the latest car?) Death
wasn't part of the original plan, but after Adam and Eve ate from the
Tree of Knowledge, G-d decided man needs the discipline of a final
exam.
Am I my brother's keeper? (Genesis 4:9)
Cain's evasion of responsibility for killing Abel. He implied the
guilt was actually G-d's for failing to prevent the murder from taking
place. See: "Where was G-d during the Holocaust?" See also the
definition of chutzpah: the man who kills his parents and throws
himself on the court's mercy because he's an orphan.
An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth (Exodus 21:24)
The basic principle of justice, known as "the law of talon".
Punishment is only just when it's commensurate with the crime. In
actual practice, Biblical courts didn't remove eyes or teeth, but
calculated their monetary value and assigned that amount as damages.
Mothers voice the law of talon when they say, "One day your children
will drive you crazy, just like you're driving me crazy!"
Rabbi Kalman Packouz
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