1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 28 of 32.
The Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, in its tractate Nezikin, reads the law of the thief who must pay double for a stolen animal that is "found alive in his hand" (Exodus 22:3). From the...
The Mekhilta expands the concept of theft beyond physical property. They said about certain people: if they could "steal" the Higher Mind, God's mind itself, they would do so. The ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, expounding the night of the Exodus, pauses over the words "And he called to Moses and to Aaron" (Exodus 12:31), where Pharaoh summons them at midnigh...
Thus do we find with our fathers, that when they stood on Mount Sinai, they sought to steal the Higher Mind, as it is written (Exodus 24:7) "Everything that the L–rd has spoken, we...
The Mekhilta lays out a precise hierarchy of liability for theft, distinguishing between different categories of stolen property and the corresponding penalties a thief must pay. T...
The laws of theft in the Torah are not one-size-fits-all. Different stolen objects carry different penalties, and the Mekhilta works through a particularly tricky case: what happen...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, illustrates a remarkable principle about obedience to authority through the story of Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, three Jewish me...
The Mekhilta is treating the laws of capital crimes, and beyond the cases already discussed it places the kidnapper, the one who steals a human being and sells him, who forfeits hi...
The Mekhilta turns a law about theft into a teaching about the hunger for Torah. It imagines a man whose friend teaches Torah for a fee, but who cannot or will not pay. So he hides...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, captures the moment when Pharaoh finally broke. After the tenth plague, the death of every firstborn in Egypt, Pharaoh summoned Moses...
This midrash from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael comments on the Egyptians' panic after the plague of the firstborn, when they cried out, "we are all dying" (Exodus 12:33). Why woul...
The Mekhilta draws a teaching from a small detail in the Exodus narrative. Scripture states (Exodus 12:34) "And the people took their dough before it leavened," and the sages read ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, turns its attention to a small but revealing detail about the night of the Exodus. The Torah states that the Israelites carried "thei...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, preserves a question from Rabbi Nathan that captures the emotional texture of the Exodus. The Torah describes the Israelites carrying...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, examines a verse that seems to state the obvious: "And the children of Israel did as Moses had bid them" (Exodus 12:35). The rabbis a...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, pauses on a detail in the Exodus narrative that seems redundant: "And they asked of Egypt vessels of silver and vessels of gold and r...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, preserves a teaching from Rabbi Yossi HaGlili that explains why the Egyptians willingly handed over their treasures to the departing ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, records a teaching from Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov about how the Israelites knew exactly what to ask from the Egyptians. And how the Eg...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, records Rabbi Nathan's interpretation of one of the most loaded words in the Exodus narrative. The Torah says the Egyptians "vayashil...
"And they emptied out Egypt" (Exodus 12:36). The Mekhilta first explains how Israel could lawfully take Egyptian valuables that had been used in idolatry. We are hereby apprised, i...
The Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael lingers on a single travel notice: "And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth" (Exodus 12:37). The sages measure the route at forty ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael probes the logic of a verse on damages: "If a man ravage a field or a vineyard, and he send his beast, and it feed in another man's field" (Exodus 22:...
The Mekhilta establishes a foundational principle of tort law in the Torah: a person is not liable for damage unless the harmful agent leaves their property and causes damage elsew...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, takes up a question about the Israelites' first stop after leaving Egypt: a place called Succoth. "And they traveled from Rameses to ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael derives a precise set of liability rules from the verse "and he send his beast" (Exodus 22:4), establishing who is responsible when an animal causes d...
Reading the Exodus account of Israel's first encampment, the Mekhilta records a dispute over the word succoth. R. Akiva says that succoth refers to the clouds of glory, the miracul...
"And it eat in another's field", Rabbi Nathan addressed a scenario where someone stacked grain in another person's field without permission. If the field owner's beast then came ou...
(Exodus 12:3)7) "six hundred thousand men": sixty ten thousands, as in (Song of Songs 3:7) "Behold, the couch of Shlomoh, (acronymically, 'He who spoke and brought the world into b...
The passage from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines the law of damage caused by fire and uses it to teach a far-reaching principle of liability. Commenting on (Exodus 22:5) "If...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, records a debate among three sages about the size of the "great multitude" (erev rav) that accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt. T...
"If fire go out and it find thorns" (Exodus 22:5). A person lights a fire on his own property, and it escapes. It reaches a neighboring field and destroys crops, haystacks, or stan...
When the Israelites finally left Egypt, they did not leave empty-handed. The Torah describes them departing with "flocks and herds, a great crush of cattle", a staggering processio...
The Mekhilta establishes a foundational ruling in the laws of property damage caused by animals. The question is straightforward: when is an animal's owner liable for the destructi...
When fire spreads from one person's property and damages a neighbor's field, how far does liability extend? The Mekhilta records a three-way debate among the sages that reveals jus...
The word ugoth in the phrase "ugoth matzoth" (Exodus 12:39) refers to thin wafers, flat cakes of unleavened dough. The Mekhilta establishes this meaning by cross-referencing two ot...
"and there be consumed sheaves": The verse (Exodus 22:5) treats the case of a person who kindles a fire that escapes and burns a neighbor's property, fixing the kindler's liability...
The Torah records a striking detail about the Israelites' departure from Egypt: "and provisions, too, they could not make for themselves." The Mekhilta reads this not as a statemen...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael presses on the phrasing of the Torah's damage laws and asks why a particular clause is even necessary. Scripture says, "Pay shall he pay, the lighter...
Two verses in the Torah appear to contradict each other about how long the Israelites were connected to Egypt. One verse states: "And the habitation of the children of Israel in th...
Four general rules were stated by Rabbi Yishmael in the name of Rabbi Meir in respect to damages. This teaching, preserved in the Mekhilta's tractate Nezikin on the civil laws of E...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) noticed the same numerical tension between two biblical verses about the duration of Israel's time in Egypt. One says "they shall serve them and they s...
"And the habitation of the children of Israel in Egypt and in other lands was four hundred and thirty years." This is one of the verses that they (the seventy-two elders changed) i...
(Exodus 12:41) "and it was at the end of four hundred and thirty years": the Mekhilta draws a striking lesson about divine precision from the word "end." When the appointed time of...
Thus do you find, that whenever Israel is in bondage, the Shechinah is with them, viz. (Exodus 24:10) "And they saw the G��d of Israel, and under His feet, as the work of a sapphir...
God never let Israel go into exile alone. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) from approximately the 3rd century CE, tracks the She...
God did not simply send Israel home from exile. He walked back with them. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), makes...
R. Eliezer draws a line between two redemptions, the one already accomplished and the one still owed. On this night in Nisan, he teaches, Israel was redeemed from Egypt; but the fi...
This teaching from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael sets out an interpretive principle for reading the Torah's commandments. As G-d speaks to Moses and Aaron about the laws of the Pas...
