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Moses stood before Israel and said: "You have been shown to know that the Lord, He is God; there is none beside Him" (Deuteronomy 4:35). Not told — shown. The plagues, the sea, the...
"Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?" (Malachi 2:10). Judah approaches Joseph — who is not yet revealed as his brother — and identifies his family: "We, your twe...
There is nothing more beloved than the Mincha prayer. The afternoon offering — the one between the morning and the evening — is the prayer that comes at the moment when the day is ...
God is known in this world by bringing judgment upon those who need it. This is Aggadat Bereshit's uncomfortable claim: "The Lord is known for executing judgment; the wicked are en...
A psalm of Asaph opens this section of Aggadat Bereshit: "God has made Himself known in Judah; His name is great in Israel" (Psalm 76:2). And immediately the rabbis add the verse f...
A small city, few people, a great king who comes and builds fortifications — (Ecclesiastes 9:14) describes something small being threatened by something enormous. The rabbis identi...
When the offering was completed (1 Chronicles 18:26), the midrash reads it through Song of Songs: the thread of crimson, the image of the veil that separated the holy from the prof...
"I will make my opinions widely known" (Job 36:3). God called Abraham from the east — "calling a bird of prey from the east, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11)...
"And Jacob called unto his sons" (Genesis 49:1). The Torah records the great final blessing — all twelve sons gathered around the dying patriarch, each receiving something tailored...
"I will assemble Jacob, all of you; I will bring together the remnant of Israel" (Micah 2:12). The end of Aggadat Bereshit's prophetic arc arrives here: not the death of Jacob, not...
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am He — I am the first, and I am the last as well" (Isaiah 48:12). God speaks with the full weight of eternity — before everyt...
