360 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai, shown in source order. Page 8 of 8.
A single line of the Torah opens this passage, and the sages refuse to let it pass as mere formula. "And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel" (Exodus 3...
Five great sages walked the road together, and a question rose among them: when a life hangs in the balance, may you break the Sabbath to save it? Each one reached for a verse, and...
The Sabbath does not only sanctify Israel; it bears witness for them. The sages noticed something visible to any passerby. Why is that man's shop shuttered? Why has that woman stop...
Two verses seem to disagree. One says of the six weekdays, "work shall be done," as if by some unseen hand; the other says, "you shall labor and do all your work," placing the burd...
How do you guard something sacred? Not by hugging its edges, but by leaving room around it. The sages read the command to keep the Sabbath as a demand to add ordinary minutes on bo...
The Sabbath is a sign between God and Israel, and the sages asked why it has never been lost. Their answer is fierce. Whatever Israel was willing to die for endured in their hands;...
One short verse carries a sharp command. As Israel prepares to enter the land, God cautions them against striking a covenant with the people already living there who serve idols. T...
The previous verse warned Israel away from alliances with idolaters. This verse turns from restraint to action. Tearing down their altars is not merely permitted; it is a positive ...
Many idols had their own prescribed rituals, the particular gestures their devotees believed pleased them. One might assume that a person becomes guilty only by performing an idol'...
The warning in the verse seems narrow at first. Do not make a treaty with the peoples of the land, the LORD cautions, for they will drift after their own gods and offer sacrifices ...
Here the verse describes a chain of consequences. You make a treaty, you share their sacrifices, and then you take their daughters for your sons. On its face this reads like a pred...
The verses trace a downward path with chilling clarity. A man eats from a foreign sacrifice, and the meal leads him to marry into that household. The daughters of the household lea...
The command to keep the feast of unleavened bread reaches beyond the first and last days. The Sages read "you shall keep" as a guard over the days in between as well, the intermedi...
"Every firstborn that opens the womb is Mine," the LORD declares, and the Sages set out to measure exactly how far that claim reaches. Could it include a female firstborn? No. The ...
The donkey is the one impure animal the Torah singles out for redemption, and the Sages handle the law with great care. The phrase "firstling of a donkey" appears twice, and from t...
"Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest," the verse declares, and then adds a curious detail: even in plowing and in harvest, you shall rest. The Sages pres...
The verse names a festival of weeks, and the Sages identify it at once: this is the day the tradition also calls Atzeret, the feast we know as Shavuot. It arrives marked as "the fi...
The Torah commands that three times each year, every male of Israel appear before God at the place He chooses. But who exactly counts among those "males"? The sages of the Mekhilta...
God commands the whole nation to leave home and travel to Jerusalem three times a year. To a farmer this sounds like an invitation to ruin. The sages of the Mekhilta hear the worry...
Two short laws govern the Passover sacrifice, and the Mekhilta reads each one with care, drawing a circle of responsibility around the offering. The first forbids slaughtering the ...
This verse pairs two commands that seem unrelated, and the Mekhilta mines each one. First come the first fruits. By linking the word "first" here to the same word in Deuteronomy, t...
The Torah told Israel to build a sanctuary, and it also told them to rest on the seventh day. The two commands could collide. Does the building of God's house push the Sabbath asid...
The Torah speaks of the six working days in two slightly different ways, and Rabbi Ishmael refuses to let the difference pass. One verse says work "shall be done," as if by some ha...
One short prohibition - kindle no fire on Shabbat - draws four different sages into the verse, and each finds a distinct reason it was written. The Mekhilta gathers their voices ar...
