Mind of a Monotheist | 2 | Noach: Shem, Ham and Yefet: Torah's Map of Peoplehood

Mind of a Monotheist | 2 | Noach: Shem, Ham and Yefet: Torah's Map of Peoplehood, by Rabbi David Debow

Is the Torah biased? Why is Noach's son Yefet named for beauty? A bold read on race in the Torah.

Monotheism holds that only God is a perfect unity, so a monotheist resists reducing people to a single essence. Reading Genesis 10, Rabbi David Debow shows how the Torah defines every nation by land, language and family, which overlap but can be separated. That complexity, he argues, is the Torah's answer to racial essentialism. It is also why the Torah names a bias toward "fair" Yefet, only to subvert it.