On Rosh Hashanah, we read these words not as a quaint miracle of the past, but as the very essence of the day. Rashi reminds us that Isaac was born exactly at the time promised — down to the second.

Jews celebrate the eight-day holiday, which this year begins on the eve of December 14, with the ritual of lighting candles, in honor of the tiny supply of ritually pure oil that they found in the ...