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xxv C ommentary upon each of these stories appears in the back of this book. Notes include a list of biblical texts upon which each story was built, information about which rabbinic sources were used, and some commentary on how the story came to be written and why. Translations of biblical verses come from the new Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation of the Bible (1985), except where it is noted that the author translated the verse. However , some names are rendered differently than in the NJPS version in order to match the transliterated versions of the names used in the stories themselves. Where possible, translations have been altered from masculine (“Sons of Israel”) to gender neutral (“Children of Israel”). In many translations of biblical and rabbinic texts, masculine pronouns for God have been used in order to be faithful to the Hebrew original. This is not meant to reflect the author’s own conception of the Divine. All modern sources can be found in the bibliography. Traditional sources are described in the sources section. Readers who are not familiar with the rabbinic sources cited may refer to Louis Ginsberg ’s Legends of the Jews, Hayim Nachman Bialik and Yehoshua Hanna Ravnitzky’s The Book of Legends, Naomi Hyman’s Biblical Women in the Midrash, or some other volume of collected midrash to learn more about the rabbinic commentary on a particular character or text. Bible passages quoted at the beginning of each story will be more meaningful if they are read in their context. Readers are strongly encouraged to find these quotes in the Bible and read them along with the verses that surround them. Midrash is always intertexNotes to the Reader k tual, and it is wise to spend some time with the text on which the midrash comments. In these stories I have treated biblical names with some idiosyncrasy . Names like Rachel, Benjamin, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and Moses, which are in common usage in English, have been rendered in their English spellings. Names not in common usage, like Avishag (Abishag), Mahalat (Mahalath), Asnat (Asenath), and Shimon (Simeon) have been rendered in transliteration from the Hebrew. Some names, like Miriam, Leah, Dinah, David, Naamah, and Sarah, are spelled the same in both languages. xxvi S I S T E R S A T S I N A I ...

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