How many Tribes of Israel are there and who are they? In Genesis 48 Jacob says to Joseph: Your two sons... are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are.
Without Joseph but with his two sons, there are 13 heirs of Jacob. 

Exodus 28: You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel... in the order of their birth. - These are the 12 sons of Jacob without Ephraim and Manasse

Later in Numbers 7: ... the chiefs of Israel, heads of their father's houses, who were the chiefs of the tribes... brought their offerings. - These were those 12: Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Reuben, Simeon, Gad, Ephraim, Manasse, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Naphtali. 

Chapter 8: And I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the people of Israel.

Does this mean that Levi isn't counted as a tribe and Ephraim and Manasse count in place of Joseph? Why are Ephraim and Manasse not on the onyx stones?

Hi!

I'm LB and I am happy to be here. I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area and have been looking for a good Jewish forum to join and finally found this place. Excited to be here!

im new

A friend sent me this.....I had no idea. Ironic that the descendant of Holocaust survivors is saving lives in Germany.

Sixty thousand Jews were in Thessaloniki, Greece on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. A living and vibrant Jewish community. Most of the porters in the port of Thessaloniki were Jews. The port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday. Great rabbis lived there too
 
It was on this glorious community that the Nazi terror brutally rose.
 
Hitler took Greece by storm to secure his southern wing before launching Operation Barbarossa and the offensive against Russia. Out of 60,000 Thessaloniki Jews, about 50,000 were exterminated in Birkenau in a very short time.
Few survived.
Among the survivors were the Bourla family.
After the war in 1961 a son was born to the Bourla family. And they named him Israel - Abraham. (Albert).
 
Albert grew up and studied veterinary medicine. He received his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology from the Aristotle University of Salonika Veterinary School.
At the age of 34 he moved to the United States. He married a Jewish woman named Miriam and had two children.
 
In the United States, Bourla was integrated into the medical industry. He progressed very quickly and joined the Pfizer company where he became 'Head of Global Vaccines'.
From there, the road is short for his appointment as CEO of Pfizer in 2019.
Throughout the year, Bourla led the company's efforts to find a vaccine for corona in super efforts.
The vaccine that will save the lives of millions of people around the world was led and pushed by a Jew. Son of Holocaust survivors. From Thessaloniki.
His vaccine will also reach Germany, where 1000s have died from Covid - the vaccine will also save lives there.

I am reading Rabbi Sacks Covenant & Conversation series book titled "Exodus: The Book of Redemption" for the weekly parsha.

I thought I would share what I see as a contrast between contrast between Judaism and Christianity.

It's a bit long but well worth the read.

In the introduction to Exodus Rabbi Sacks says and I quote (page 14) -

"This leads us to the great subtext of the Exodus narrative. On the surface, it is about how the Israelites were slaves and G-d brought them to freedom by a series of signs and wonders. The Israelites played no part in this process. They were pawns in the hands of Pharaoh on the one hand, G-d on the other. History is a script written by G-d, and it is for us to leave our destiny entirely in His hands. This is the plain meaning of the text.

But there is a subtext which is nuanced differently. A careful examination reveals that Exodus contains a number of double narratives, whose significance becomes clear when we put them together. So, for example:

1 - There are 2 sets of battles one immediately before, the other immediately after, the crossing of the Reed Sea, the first against Pharaoh and his chariots, the second against the Amalekites.

2 - There are 2 sets of stone tablets recording the revelation at Mt. Sinai, one before the episode of the Golden Calf (broken by Moses on his descent from the mountain), the second after the people have been forgiven for the Calf.

3 - There are 2 times that G-d is revealed in a cloud of glory, once at Mt. Sinai, the other, at the end of Exodus, in the Tabernacle (40:34-35).

4 - The Sinai covenant was declared twice, once by G-d, the second time by Moses, reading from "the book of the covenant" he has written to record G-d's words)

5 - There are 2 accounts of the construction of the Tabernacl, one before (25-30), the other (35-40) after the Golden Calf.

If we examine each pair carefully we will see that they share a common feature. In each case, the first is the work of G-d alone, while the second involves human contribution.


I am skipping a few paragraphs that go into more detail to get to the main point I want to bring out where Rabbi Sacks says - "It is not what G-d does for us, but what we do for G-d, that changes us"

So here is the contrast I see -

I am around many Christians who always want me to "hear their testimonies", about how "G-d changed me and my life".

I believe the exact opposite as Rabbi Sacks writes - "but what we do for G-d, that changes us"



So G-d doesn't change us, we change our selves under G-d's direction if we choose to use our free will to do so!

https://ketab3.files.wordpress.com/2014/...pes-qu.pdf

I enjoy the diversity in the pronunciation traditions tabulated on pp. 556–557, studying them, and using them. My questions are these:

1. Why are none of these pronunciations used in everyday conversation? The only answer I've heard is "it would sound ridiculous," but I assume that's only because nobody does it. I'm more interested in Biblical/liturgical Hebrew anyway, but I'm still curious about this.

2. As a non-Jew, am I allowed to use these pronunciations? Am I contributing to their longevity by using them?

3. What should I do when one of these pronunciations goes extinct? For example, I believe the Aramaic-speaking tradition is on its way out. I've made my own version of this table; would I have to remove pronunciations as they go extinct? I don't want to do that, nor do I want to stop using any of them...

I'm curious to know the age of the members of this forum.I'm 31 years old.

What Jewish-themed movies or television series do you recommend?

If G-d said in Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder" then why did He command to kill babies (innocent people, therefore this would be murder) in 1 Samuel 15: 3?