With a personal and occasionally idiosyncratic approach to the Torah text, this study comments on the familiar stories from Genesis with an eye toward asking the questions that the text invites, but that traditional commentaries have rarely attempted to answer. This analysis reveals a deep respect for the ancient tradition while also evincing a fresh skepticism and 21st-century sensibility concerning the rabbis' efforts to align the Torah's words with the doctrines of rabbinic Judaism as these evolved over time.