1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 22 of 32.
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 ...
Rebbi, that is Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, teaches that the honor a person gives to father and mother is precious before "Him who spoke and brought the world...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael on the laws of damages refines exactly when a killer bears full liability. R. Yitzchak states that even a man who means to strike one person but strik...
The Mekhilta confronts an apparent contradiction in the laws of Passover. One verse states, "Seven days shall you eat matzoth" (Exodus 12:15), while another declares, "Six days sha...
The Song at the Sea asks, "Who is like You among the mighty," but the Mekhilta offers a variant reading by repointing the Hebrew so it reads "Who is like You among the mute," ba'il...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael invites the reader to examine the rewards promised for three different commandments and to see a striking pattern. Each act of honor directed at the p...
Two verses in the Torah appear to contradict each other on a basic question: how many days must one eat matzah during Passover? One verse says six days. Another says seven. The Mek...
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. "Who...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws an illuminating comparison between the fear of parents and the observance of Shabbat (the Sabbath). The verse in (Leviticus 19:3) places them si...
The verse (Exodus 13:7) commands, "Only on the first day you shall eliminate leaven from your houses." The plain words seem ambiguous: does "the first day" mean the daylight hours ...
The Song at the Sea declares "Who is like You among the mighty (ba'eilim), O L-rd" (Exodus 15:11). The Mekhilta offers a pointed reading of "ba'eilim": who is like You among those ...
R. Eliezer says; It is revealed and known to Him who spoke and brought the world into being that a man honors his mother more than he does his father because she cajoles him with w...
Rabbi Akiva cuts through an elaborate derivation with a single, clean observation, a move that captures his characteristic directness as a legal mind. The question under debate is ...
The passage from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael expounds the Song at the Sea, where Israel proclaims "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord" (Exodus 15:11). The midrash offers a ...
The fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," comes with a promise attached: "so that your days be prolonged upon the land." The Mekhilta reads this promise with unfl...
"And they hit a pregnant woman, and her fetuses miscarry", Abba Chanin asked in the name of Rabbi Eliezer: why does the verse bother saying "a pregnant woman"? If her fetuses misca...
Rabbi Yossi HaGlili confronts the timing question head-on: when exactly must a person eliminate chametz from their home before Passover? His answer hinges on a single Hebrew word t...
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 fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother", comes with a promise attached: "so that your days be prolonged upon the earth" (Exodus 20:12). Most commandments in the ...
The Torah addresses a disturbing scenario: "And they hit a pregnant woman" (Exodus 21:22). Two men are fighting, and a pregnant bystander is struck, causing her to miscarry. The To...
Rabbi Yehudah argues that the Torah's command to "eliminate leaven from your houses" means one specific thing: you must burn it. Not scatter it, not crumble it into the wind, not t...
This midrash from the Mekhilta on the Song at the Sea draws out the gulf between human limitation and divine power through two vivid comparisons. The phrase "the measure of flesh a...
This midrash belongs to the Mekhilta's legal discussion of how leaven, chametz, must be removed before Passover, and whether burning is the only valid method. The rabbis test a pro...
The Torah's treatment of adultery presents a puzzle that the Mekhilta refuses to ignore. In one verse, the commandment thunders from Sinai: "You shall not commit adultery." In anot...
"and there be no death": in the woman. "then he shall be punished": for the fetuses (i.e., payment for the fetuses shall be exacted of him.) You say this, but perhaps (the meaning ...
The Mekhilta continues its relentless cross-examination of Rabbi Yehudah's position that chametz must be destroyed specifically by burning. A new argument emerges. And a new counte...
The Song at the Sea calls God "awesome in praise" (Exodus 15:11), and the Mekhilta draws out the phrase by contrasting human awe with divine awe. With flesh and blood, a person com...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael identifies a critical distinction in the commandment "You shall not steal." The eighth of the Ten Commandments is not about stealing property. It is a...
The Torah uses the word "punished" in (Exodus 21:22) when describing the penalty for a man who injures a pregnant woman during a fight. "Then he shall be punished". But punished ho...
I will derive four determinants from four like determinants. Nothar is forbidden in eating, and in derivation of benefit, and it is subject to kareth, and it is time (i.e., Pesach ...
This teaching from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, unfolds within the praise of God in the Song at the Sea and contrasts human limits with divine ge...
The Torah commands: "You shall not steal." But the Mekhilta asks a question that might surprise anyone who thinks the meaning is obvious, does this commandment prohibit stealing mo...
The Torah addresses a troubling scenario in (Exodus 21:22): two men are fighting, and in the chaos, a pregnant woman gets struck. The blow causes her to miscarry. Who pays? And to ...
Rabbi Yehudah ben Betheira flips the entire debate on its head with a single devastating observation. The other rabbis have been arguing that chametz must be burned. And only burne...
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...
This midrash of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael on the Ten Commandments confronts a question that troubled the sages about the prohibition "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:13). On it...
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 ninth commandment, "You shall not testify against your neighbor false testimony", is more than a prohibition. It is the foundation of an entire legal system built on the reliab...
The Torah says that when a pregnant woman is struck and miscarries, the compensation is determined "as the husband of the woman imposes upon him" (Exodus 21:22). One might think th...
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 even...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael poses a deceptively simple question: how were the Ten Commandments arranged on the two tablets? The answer reveals a hidden moral architecture within ...
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 DeRabbi Yishmael uses a vivid parable to explain why murder is equated with diminishing the divine image. The teaching compares God to a king of flesh and blood who en...
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 from...
Idolatry and adultery are the same sin. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), makes this case by pointing to the stru...
The Torah warns that whoever eats chametz during Passover will have their soul "cut off from Israel." The punishment is kareth, spiritual excision from the community. But the Mekhi...
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 fig...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael reveals a hidden connection between two of the Ten Commandments by examining their physical placement on the tablets. The commandment "You shall not t...
