1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 19 of 32.
The Torah uses an unusual doubled phrase when describing how the Passover lamb must not be prepared: "vashel mevushal", literally something like "cooked, cooked" or "boiled, boiled...
Rabbi Nechemiah painted a vivid picture of the chaos that engulfed the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. When God unleashed thunder from the heavens, the physical world below shattered...
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 want ...
When God commanded that a jar of manna be preserved, the instruction was specific (Exodus 16:33): "Put therein a full omer of manna and place it before the Lord as a keeping for yo...
(Ibid. 4) "You shall not make for yourself an idol (lit., "a carving")": I might think that he may not make one that projects but he may make one that is flat. It is, therefore, wr...
The Torah addresses a grim scenario: one person strikes another, and the victim's survival is uncertain. The verse states that if the injured party recovers, "the striker shall be ...
The Torah says the Passover lamb must not be "cooked in water" (Exodus 12:9). Water is specified. But Rabbi Yishmael immediately sees the problem: what about wine? What about fruit...
When God brought judgment upon the Egyptians at the Red Sea, the natural order itself turned upside down. The Mekhilta captures this reversal in a single, devastating image: "In th...
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'erm...
Centuries after the Exodus, the prophet Jeremiah faced a stubborn problem. The people of Israel had stopped studying Torah, and their excuse was entirely practical: "How will we fe...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching from Rabbi Akiva about just how far the prohibition against making images extends. The verse in (Exodus 20:18) states "which is in ...
When a man strikes another and the victim recovers, "if he arise and walk outside upon his staff", the Torah says "the striker shall be absolved" (Exodus 21:19). Absolved of what? ...
Rabbi Akiva, the towering sage who reshaped all of rabbinic Judaism, offers his own answer to the question of why the Torah only mentions water when prohibiting the cooking of the ...
When the prophet Elijah returns at the end of days, he will not come empty-handed. According to the Mekhilta, he will bring three sacred objects that were hidden away centuries ago...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael addresses a precise legal question about the commandment in (Exodus 20:5): "You shall not bow down to them and you shall not serve them." The question...
The Torah prescribes that when one person injures another, the attacker must pay for the victim's lost wages: "his sheveth shall he give" (Exodus 21:19). The Hebrew word sheveth me...
Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) and the most authoritative sage of his generation, weighs in on the Passover cooking pr...
As the walls of water began crashing down upon the Egyptian army, a debate erupted among the soldiers trapped in the seabed. The Torah records that "Egypt said: I shall flee from b...
This teaching from the Mekhilta on the Song at the Sea expounds the words (Exodus 15:8) "They stood up like a flask," describing how the waters of the sea piled up and stood firm. ...
(Exodus 16:35) "And the children of Israel ate the manna for forty years": the verse seems straightforward, yet a difficulty hides inside it. The Israelites left Egypt on the fifte...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asks a deceptively simple question: what is the purpose of the commandment "You shall not bow down"? If the Torah already states in (Exodus 22:19) tha...
The Mekhilta explores a subtle legal distinction between two types of compensation: ripui (medical expenses) and sheveth (work-disability payment). When it comes to medical expense...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines a single word in the law of the Passover offering, "uvashel," usually translated as "boiled." The Sages establish that here "bashel" refers t...
Rabbi Yossi raises a startling possibility about the ten plagues. The destruction at the Red Sea, he argues, was not a separate event from the plagues in Egypt, it happened simulta...
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 ...
Rabbi Eliezer Hamodai calculated exactly how long the manna lasted after the death of Moses: seventy days. Not a rough estimate, a precise count, worked out from the calendar itsel...
"And heal shall he heal", the Torah doubles the word "heal," and the Mekhilta mines this repetition for legal content. If the victim was healed once but then relapsed, and was heal...
(this obtains) not with Egypt alone, but with all who afflict Israel throughout the generations. As it is written (Psalms 78:66) "And He beat back His foes. Eternal disgrace did He...
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...
R. Yossi works out a chronological puzzle about the manna, the bread from heaven that fed Israel in the wilderness. He says: Israel ate the manna for fifty-four years in all, forty...
The Torah gives strict instructions about Passover leftovers: "You shall not leave over anything of it until the morning, and what is left over of it until the morning, in fire sha...
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...
A certain philosopher asked R. Gamliel: It is written in your Torah "for the L–rd your G–d is a wrathful G–d." Now is there power in idolatry to arouse wrath (in G–d)? One here is ...
Rabbi Yishmael cuts through the debate about burning Passover leftovers with a characteristically logical argument. The other sages needed the repeated phrase "until morning" to es...
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 ...
Three miraculous gifts sustained Israel in the wilderness, and each one was tied to a specific leader. Rabbi Yehoshua teaches that when Miriam died, the well that had followed the ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael confronts a difficult phrase from the Ten Commandments, "He visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, for the third and the fourth generations...
Rabbi Yonathan builds a towering logical structure to prove that Passover leftovers cannot be burned on the festival. And like Rabbi Yishmael, he argues the Torah did not need an e...
Rabbi Yitzchak enters the debate about burning Passover leftovers with yet another angle of attack, proving the same conclusion through a different logical comparison. His argument...
The passage of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael reads the closing words of the Second Commandment, where the L-rd promises kindness "for My lovers and the keepers of My mitzvoth" (Exo...
"And thus shall you eat it" (Exodus 12:11), the Torah prescribes not just what to eat on Passover night, but how to eat it. Loins girded. Sandals on your feet. Staff in hand. Eat i...
(Exodus 14:26) "And the L–rd said to Moses: Stretch forth your hand over the sea": It will not stand against you and it will not deviate from your command. "and the waters will tur...
(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 ...
When the Torah says that Israel "encamped in Refidim" (Exodus 17:1), the Mekhilta hears more than a place name. The rabbis break the word apart: "rafu yadam", "their hands weakened...
The Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, in its tractate Bachodesh on the giving of the Torah, parses the third commandment, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain" (Exodu...
(Exodus 21:20) introduces the law of a master who strikes his bondservant: "And if a man strike his man-servant or his maid-servant." The Mekhilta explains why this verse is necess...
The Torah commands the Israelites to eat the Passover lamb "in haste" (Exodus 12:11). But whose haste? The Mekhilta identifies a surprising ambiguity in this seemingly simple word ...
The Mekhilta brings the words of the prophet Jeremiah to frame the principle of exact divine recompense. Jeremiah declares (Jeremiah 32:19), "Wondrous in counsel and mighty in deed...
