1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 25 of 32.
The Mekhilta makes a striking observation about the phrase "in the mountain of Your inheritance." The Temple is beloved by God in a way that surpasses even creation itself. How? Th...
Rabbi Eliezer taught about the meaning of suffering by turning to the book of Proverbs. He cited the verse: "The chastisement of the Lord, my son, do not despise" (Proverbs 3:11). ...
The Mekhilta records the same logical challenge yet again, applying it to a slightly different aspect of the tam-mued comparison. The mued's owner pays kofer, ransom money. This is...
The Mekhilta reads the phrase "You have wrought, O Lord" and immediately pivots to a devastating question: if God Himself built the Temple with His own hands, what does it say abou...
R. Shimon b. Yochai said: Why was this (gezeirah shavah ) stated? Even without it, it follows a fortiori, viz. If in a "place", killing others, where minors are not equated with ad...
The Mekhilta deepens its meditation on the Temple with a remarkable claim about divine craftsmanship. "The sanctuary, O Lord, did Your hands establish", note the plural. Hands, not...
(Exodus 21:28) states: "The ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten." The Mekhilta asks: why is the prohibition against eating the flesh necessary? If the ox has been s...
The Torah specifies in (Exodus 12:19) that the laws of Passover apply to both "the proselyte and the citizen of the land." The Mekhilta explains why this explicit mention of the co...
The Mekhilta tells a parable. Robbers break into a king's palace. They despoil everything of value. They kill the king's courtiers, his loyal servants, the people who maintained hi...
Rabbi Yonathan made a declaration that would strike most people as counterintuitive: "Beloved are afflictions." Suffering, he taught, is not a sign of divine abandonment. It is a s...
The Mekhilta is sifting the laws of a stoned ox, the animal that has gored a person to death and must itself be put to death. Scripture forbids eating it, but the Sages want to kno...
The Torah states in (Exodus 12:20), "All leavening you shall not eat." The Mekhilta asks why this verse is needed at all, since the Torah has already forbidden chametz in an earlie...
Rabbi Yossi Haglili makes one of the most poignant observations in all of rabbinic literature. When Israel stood at the Red Sea and sang, they used the future tense: "The Lord will...
R. Shimon b. Yochai says, beloved are afflictions. It is a startling opening, and the Mekhilta builds an argument to support it. Three goodly gifts were given to Israel, gifts that...
The Mekhilta presents a logical reversal. It initially attempted to compare a stoned ox to an eglah arufah, the heifer whose neck is broken in the ceremony for an unsolved murder (...
"In all of your habitations shall you eat matzoth": What is the intent of this? From (Devarim 14:23) "And you shall eat before the L–rd your G–d the tithe of your grain and wine an...
At the climax of the Song of the Sea, Israel proclaimed: "The Lord will reign for ever and ever" (Exodus 15:18). It is one of the most sweeping theological declarations in the enti...
Rabbi Nechemiah made a bold claim: afflictions are beloved by God. Not merely tolerated, not merely permitted, beloved. And he backed this claim with a comparison to sacrificial of...
Rebbi says: If it is forbidden to derive benefit from the burnt bullocks and the burnt he-goats, which do not come to atone for the world (viz. (Leviticus 26:2)7), how much more so...
The Mekhilta records Rabbi Yishmael's ruling on which types of dough qualify for the matzah obligation on Passover. And the answer is far more restrictive than one might expect. Th...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
Rabbi Eliezer, one of the greatest sages of the Mishnaic period, fell gravely ill. Four distinguished elders came to visit him at his bedside: Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi E...
One of Rabbi Yishmael's disciples raised a distinction between different categories of oxen. An ox that has become ritually impure (tamei) is still permitted for deriving benefit, ...
The sages offer a more lenient reading of "bread of affliction" than Rabbi Yishmael. Where Yishmael excluded enriched doughs from the Passover matzah obligation, the sages rule tha...
(Exodus 15:20) introduces Miriam with a curious title: "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." The Mekhilta immediately spots the problem. Miriam was the sister of both Aaron and Mo...
Rabbi Eliezer takes the most expansive position in this debate. Like the sages, he rules that a person fulfills the matzah obligation with all types of dough and with second-tithe ...
The Torah recounts that when the city of Shechem violated Dinah, it was specifically Shimon and Levi who took up swords and avenged her. The verse calls them "the brothers of Dinah...
The Torah prohibits "gods of silver and gods of gold" (Exodus 20:20). But what exactly do these phrases add to the prohibition against idolatry? After all, the commandment against ...
This midrash from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael treats the case of an ox that gores a person, distinguishing two categories the rabbis call the tam, an ox not yet known to be dange...
Rabbi Yossi raised a deceptively simple question about the Passover laws that reveals how carefully the rabbis read every word of the Torah. The commandment says, "Seven days shall...
The Mekhilta asks a question about Kazbi (also known as Cozbi), the Midianite woman who played a central role in the sin at Baal Peor. The verse calls her "the daughter of a prince...
If the prohibition against "gods of gold" addresses making extra cherubs beyond the commanded two, what does the additional prohibition against "gods of silver" teach? After all, t...
Shimon ben Azzai interpreted the phrase "and the owner of the ox is absolved" (Exodus 21:28) as absolution from paying half-kofer, half of the ransom payment owed when an ox kills ...
The Mekhilta asks a practical question that most readers skip right over. The verse says Miriam took "the timbrel in her hand" and led the women in song after the crossing of the R...
The Torah permits the making of cherubim, golden winged figures, atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (Exodus 25:18). These are not merely decorative. They are the pr...
Rabban Gamliel offered a different interpretation of "the owner of the ox is absolved." He argued the tam's owner is absolved from paying the monetary value of a bondservant who is...
The Mekhilta highlights a detail about Miriam's song that establishes a fundamental principle about women's participation in Israelite worship. The verse says "And Miriam answered ...
Rabbi Akiva offered his own reading of "the owner of the ox is absolved." He argued that the tam's owner is absolved from paying for the value of fetuses. His reasoning: both a man...
(Exodus 21:29) introduces the mued, the habitual goring ox: "And if it were a goring ox." The Mekhilta explains that this verse exists to draw clear distinctions between the tam (f...
Rabbi Meir tackled one of the trickiest problems in the Torah's laws of damages: how do you classify a dangerous ox? The Torah distinguishes between a tam, an ox with no history of...
This teaching from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, the early tannaitic midrash on Exodus, parses the laws of the goring ox in Exodus chapter 21. The Torah distinguishes between a ta...
"And it killed a man or a woman", this phrase appears in the mued section, but the Mekhilta says it is "extra." Its legal content is already known from other verses. So why is it h...
Rabbi Akiva found a striking legal principle hidden inside a single verse about a goring ox. The Torah states that when an ox kills a person after its owner was warned, "the ox sha...
"And its owner, too, shall die", the Torah pronounces a death sentence on the owner of a mued ox that kills a person. But the Mekhilta specifies: this death is "at the hands of Hea...
Rabbi Akiva specified that when the Torah requires the mued's owner to pay kofer, ransom, the amount is calculated based on the value of the ox owner, not the value of the victim. ...
R. Yishmael says: Come and see the mercies of the One who spoke and brought the world into being, for flesh and blood. For a man acquires himself with money from the hands of Heave...
The Mekhilta explores a fascinating taxonomy of what can and cannot be redeemed in Jewish law. Certain consecrated objects can be redeemed, returned to ordinary status through a mo...
Beloved is Israel. So beloved that God gave entire nations as kofer, as ransom, for the souls of His people. The proof is (Isaiah 43:3): "I gave Egypt as kofer for you, Ethiopia an...
