4,331 texts · Page 89 of 91
The article describes the flood narrative from Genesis vi.9-ix.17, where God destroys humanity due to wickedness, sparing only Noah's family and two (or seven) pairs of every livin...
This extensive article by Kaufmann Kohler from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia explores the Jewish doctrine of "last things"—the final destiny of the Jewish nation and humanity. Escha...
Gehenna (Hebrew: Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death); Greek: Geenna) originated as "the valley of the son of Hinnom," south of Jerusalem, where child sacrifi...
The forecasting of the future by certain signs or movements of external things, or by visions in certain ecstatic states of the soul (see Dreams and Prophecy). Divination rests on ...
Dreams have at all times and among all peoples received much attention. In the youth of a nation, as in the youth of an individual, dreams are so vivid that they appear to be hardl...
This word occurs only once in the Bible, in Ps. cxxxix. 16, where it means "embryo." In tradition everything that is in a state of incompletion, everything not fully formed, as a n...
Name of the prince of demons. The meaning of the name and the identity of the two forms here given are still in dispute. Asmodeus first appears in the Book of Tobit. According to T...
Prince of the demons, and an important figure both in Talmudic and in post-Talmudic literature, where he appears as accuser, seducer, and destroyer. His name is etymologized as = "...
The name of a supernatural being mentioned in connection with the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.). After Satan, for whom he was in some degree a preparation, Azazel enjo...
The Throne of Glory is an important feature in the Cabala. It is placed at the highest point of the universe (Ḥag. 12b); and is of the same color as the sky—purple-blue, like the "...
Plural word of unknown derivation used in the Hebrew Bible to denote the primitive Semitic house-gods whose cult had been handed down to historical times from the earlier period of...
The earliest Hebrews believed the dead descended into Sheol — a colorless underworld where all souls, righteous and wicked alike, lingered in shadow (Isaiah 14:15). Only the rarest...
Two words haunted ancient Israel: shedim (demons) and se'irim. The Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing to either. They sacrificed anyway. The se'irim were the hairy ones, sa...
Divination using the deceased was reportedly widespread among Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The Israelites likely adopted this practice from Persian sources and engaged in it exten...
The evil eye is a supposed power of bewitching or harming by spiteful looks, attributed to certain persons as a natural endowment. This belief was widespread among ancient civiliza...
Metatron is the name of an angel found only in Jewish literature. Elisha b. Abuyah, seeing this angel in the heavens, believed there were "two powers" or divinities (Hag. 15a). Whe...
A class of celestial beings appears only once in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the prophet Isaiah's visionary experience (Isaiah 6:2 onwards). Isaiah observed multiple seraphim...
The cherub represents a winged celestial being frequently referenced throughout Scripture. According to the prophet Ezekiel's vision, cherubim appear as a group of four living crea...
"Behemoth" denotes the hippopotamus, though the Biblical description contains mythical elements suggesting these were not ordinary animals. The creatures appear in Job xl, where be...
The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accor...
The term "paradise" likely derives from Persian origins. Within the Hebrew Bible, it appears only three times: Canticles 4:13, (Ecclesiastes 2:5), and (Nehemiah 2:8). The first usa...
The concept of soul in Jewish tradition derives from Genesis, where God endows humans with "spirit or breath" (ruah). Initially, this spirit was "inseparably connected, if not whol...
Magic is described as "the pretended art of producing preternatural effects," constituting one of two principal divisions of occultism alongside divination. Effects produced may be...
God looked down at the world before the flood and saw something He hadn't seen since the days of Adam — a civilization that had talked itself into impunity. The wicked had done the...
Gog makes his plans in secret. He thinks his strategies are hidden — the alliance-building, the schemes against Israel, the invasions planned in quiet rooms. "On that day, thoughts...
A psalm of David, written after Doeg the Edomite betrayed him — that's where Aggadat Bereshit anchors the story of Jacob's ladder. Strange placement. But the rabbis had a method. D...
The flood waters had covered everything. Noah had been sealed in the ark for months — the rain, the silence, the slow recession of the water, the waiting. Then the text says simply...
Israel in Egypt — fruitful and multiplying, a thousand thousand and myriad myriads — and still, in God's eyes, like a single beloved child. That's the paradox this section of Aggad...
Three figures pray and God delights in it: Moses, David, and the Messiah. This is the claim Aggadat Bereshit makes from (Proverbs 15:8) — "the prayer of the upright is His delight....
God told Noah to enter the ark, and then, after the flood, He told him to leave it. "Go out from the ark" (Genesis 8:16). A simple command — except the rabbis hear in it a whole th...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
King Solomon stood before God and prayed at the dedication of the Temple. "Master of the Universe," he said, "let everything else be set aside and focus on my prayer and supplicati...
"A little that the righteous have is better than the abundance of many wicked" (Psalm 37:16). The rabbis of Aggadat Bereshit loved this verse because it turned ordinary logic on it...
Israel in exile speaks like a child who has finally stopped lying. "Master of the Universe, at first I said 'I have not sinned,' and You brought suffering upon me. Now I say: I hav...
Before the world was created, God hid the Torah. Not in a vault, not in a distant heaven — hidden in the fabric of things, waiting for the right person to find it. And then Abraham...
Each prophet saw God differently. Amos saw Him standing — "I saw the Lord standing beside the altar" (Amos 9:1). Isaiah saw Him sitting — "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high ...
When Israel fears God, the nations fear Israel. When Israel abandons its fear of God, the nations attack — and the enemy pursuing them is not a military power. It is the consequenc...
Abraham was ninety-nine years old when God renewed the covenant (Genesis 17:1). The sons of Korah composed a psalm about this moment — "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty on...
Why does the world hold together? Jeremiah gives the unlikely answer: "If not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the fixed order of heaven and earth" (Jere...
"The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" (Psalm 110:1). This verse launches one of the most complex readings in Aggadat Bereshit — about how the Holy One loves and exalts...
Three days after his circumcision, Abraham sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day — sore, exhausted, ninety-nine years old. And God appeared to him (Genesis 18:1). ...
Hell has seven names. This is what Aggadat Bereshit says when Malachi promises "the day is coming, burning like an oven" (Malachi 3:19). The rabbis did not flinch from the geograph...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
"Far be it from You to do such a thing!" Abraham said it to God's face. He was standing between Sodom and heaven, and he was arguing (Genesis 18:25). The Hebrew word is chalilah — ...
At the end of days, the prophet Malachi says, you will be able to tell the righteous from the wicked at a glance: "You shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked...
"Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power" (Exodus 15:6). The rabbis tracked the right hand of God through every book of scripture and found the same pattern everywhere: when ...
After Sodom's destruction, Abraham journeyed on. He left the ruined plain behind and moved — not fleeing, not grieving, just continuing. Job had the language for this: "The mountai...
Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years (Judges 9:22). Aggadat Bereshit uses this strange opening — about a king in the book of Judges — to arrive at the first murder. The path...
