1,517 texts · Page 13 of 32
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael draws a line from the Red Sea to another famous battlefield to demonstrate that God fights Israel's wars from heaven. The case in point: Sisera, the f...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael continues its catalog of enemies who rose against Israel and were struck down by heaven, turning now to one of the most dramatic military disasters in...
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, stood as the supreme example of human arrogance brought low. The Mekhilta recounts how this mighty ruler dared to place himself above all creation....
Belshazzar, king of Babylon, threw the banquet that ended his dynasty. The Mekhilta cites (Daniel 5:1) — "King Belshazzar made a great banquet" — and reads it as the culmination of...
The Mekhilta catches a subtle but crucial grammatical detail in (Exodus 15:7). The Song at the Sea does not say "You have destroyed those who rose up against You" — past tense, as ...
The Mekhilta identifies another future-tense verb in the Song at the Sea. It is not written "You have sent forth Your wrath" — as if God's anger were already spent — but "You will ...
The Mekhilta continues its grammatical investigation of the Song at the Sea and finds yet another future-tense verb. (Exodus 15:7) does not say "He has consumed them as stubble" — ...
All woods, when they burn, their sound is not heard; but stubble, when it burns, it crackles and is heard. Thus did the sound of Egypt, in its destruction, make itself heard. All w...
When the (other) kingdoms are symbolized, they are symbolized as cedars, viz. (Ezekiel 31:3) "Behold, Ashur, a cedar in the Levanon," and (Amos 2:9) "And I destroyed the Emori from...
Antoninus, the Roman emperor, once asked Rabbeinu HaKadosh — Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — for political counsel. "I wan...
The Mekhilta reads (Exodus 15:8) — "And with the breath of Your nostrils, the waters ne'ermu" — as another demonstration of God's measure-for-measure justice. The Hebrew word "ne'e...
(Ibid.) "They stood up like a flask": Just as a bound flask neither emits nor admits, so, the spirits of the Egyptians were bound up within them, neither emitting nor admitting—whi...
The Mekhilta draws a remarkable distinction between what the Red Sea was for Egypt and what it was for Israel. For the Egyptians, the sea was a sealed tomb. For the Israelites, it ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offers a vivid image of what happened to the Egyptians at the bottom of the Red Sea. The Torah says "the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea...
The sea has no heart, and He gave it a heart. A terebinth has no heart, and He gave it a heart, viz. (II Samuel 18:4) "He (Avshalom) was yet alive in the heart of the terebinth." T...
The redemption of Israel was not a private event. According to the Mekhilta, the entire natural world erupted in celebration. Not the heavens alone rejoiced — the mountains and all...
(Exodus 15:9) "The foe said: I shall pursue, etc.": This appertains (chronologically) to the beginning of the parshah. Why is it written here? For "there is no before and after in ...
"The foe said, etc.": How did Israel know what Pharaoh thought of them in Egypt? The Holy Spirit reposed upon them and they knew it. Pharaoh said: It really does not befit us to pu...
"The foe (Pharaoh) said": And he did not know what he was saying, viz. (Mishlei 16:1) "To a man are the musings of his heart, but to the L–rd is the meaning of the tongue." (He sai...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a dramatic speech attributed to God, addressed to the Egyptians at the moment of the Red Sea's destruction. The voice is that of a king — an...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
The Egyptian army was not unified in its cruelty. According to the Mekhilta, the Egyptians at the Red Sea divided into three factions, each with a different plan for what to do wit...
Re those who said: Let us kill them and take their money—"My hand shall impoverish them." With five things (i.e., utterances) did Pharaoh stand and blaspheme in the midst of the la...
You inclined Your right hand—the earth swallowed them up." An analogy: A renegade stands and blasphemes behind the king's palace: If I find the king's son, I will seize him and sla...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael invokes a pair of verses from Psalms to reveal something startling about how God responds to the nations that rage against Israel: He laughs. The firs...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
The Mekhilta pauses on two words from (Exodus 15:10) — "mighty waters" — and asks a deceptively simple question: who in scripture is called "mighty"? The answer reveals a fourfold ...
The Mekhilta pinpoints the exact moment when Israel first declared (Exodus 15:11): "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?" It was not during the plagues. It was not at the mome...
Israel was not the only nation that broke into song at the Red Sea. According to the Mekhilta, all the peoples of the world joined in. The destruction of Pharaoh and his army sent ...
The Mekhilta takes the worldwide rejection of idolatry at the Red Sea and projects it forward into the future. What happened momentarily at the sea — when all nations opened their ...
The Song at the Sea asks: "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?" (Exodus 15:11). The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael reads this question not as rhetorical flattery but as a genuine ...
Variantly: "Who is like You bailmim" ("among the mute"). You hear the defamation of Your children and You remain silent, viz. (Isaiah 42:14) "I have ever been silent; I have been s...
The Mekhilta lifts the declaration "Who is like You among the mighty" out of the earthly realm and directs it upward — toward the angelic hosts who minister before God on high. "Wh...
Variantly: Who is like You ("ba'eilim") among those who call themselves gods? Pharaoh called himself a god, viz. (Ezekiel 29:3) "Mine is my river (the Nile), and I have made it." A...
Variantly: Who is like You among those whom others call "gods" and who are without substance, those of whom it is written (Psalms 115:5) "hey have a mouth but cannot speak, etc." B...
The Song at the Sea declares, "Who is like You, nedar in holiness" (Exodus 15:11), and the Mekhilta finds a hidden layer of meaning compressed inside a single Hebrew word. The word...
The measure of flesh and blood—A man cannot speak two things at the same time. But the measure of the Holy One Blessed be He—He said (all) of the ten commandments as one, viz. (Exo...
Variantly: "awesome in praise": The measure of flesh and blood—A man's awe is more upon those who are distant from him than upon those who are near him. Not so, the Holy One Blesse...
The measure of flesh and blood—When one man works for another—plowing with him, sowing with him, weeding with him, hoeing with him—the other gives him a single coin and he goes on ...
The Mekhilta draws a sharp contrast between human construction and divine creation. When a human being builds, the natural order is bottom-up. You lay the foundation first, then bu...
The Mekhilta draws a vivid contrast between human construction and divine architecture. A human being builds a roof out of wood, earth, and stones, solid materials that resist grav...
The Mekhilta draws a stark contrast between the creative power of God and the limitations of human beings. The measure of flesh and blood — meaning any mortal craftsman — cannot ev...
The Mekhilta draws a profound contrast between human ability and divine power through the act of creation from earth. A human craftsman cannot form a living figure from dirt. He ca...
The Mekhilta draws a sharp contrast between a human artisan and the divine Creator. When a mortal sculptor sets out to make a figure, he must build it piece by piece — starting fro...
The Mekhilta presents a second comparison between human artisans and the divine Creator — this time focusing on the problem of models. When a mortal craftsman is asked to make a fi...
The Mekhilta once again turns to verb tense to extract prophecy from the Song at the Sea. The verse does not say "worked wonders" — past tense, as though God's miracles were finish...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael takes the phrase "working wonders" from the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:11) and expands it far beyond the events at the Red Sea. The Torah describes Go...
Variantly: "working wonders" with the fathers, and destined to work them with the sons, viz. (Michah 7:15) "As in the days when you went forth from the land of Egypt, I shall show ...
