1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 30 of 32.
The Torah commands: "And the priest shall burn wood upon it every morning" (Leviticus 6:5), referring to the daily kindling of fire on the altar. The Mekhilta immediately asks: why...
(Exodus 22:9) says "no one seeing" in the context of a guardian who claims an animal was stolen from his care. The Mekhilta explains: "no one seeing" means no witnesses were presen...
The Torah commands: "the one lamb shall you offer in the morning, and the other lamb shall you offer in the afternoon" (Numbers 28:4). This is the tamid, the daily perpetual offeri...
"The oath of the Lord shall be between the two of them", the Mekhilta focuses on the divine Name used in this verse. The oath is described as "the oath of the Lord", using the Tetr...
The Torah records God's instruction: "And they shall make for Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). The Mekhilta once again poses its characteristic question:...
(Exodus 22:10) states: "The oath of the Lord shall be between the two of them." The Mekhilta extracts four separate legal principles from this single phrase, each based on the word...
Once, the disciples spent a Sabbath in Yavneh, R. Yehoshua not among them. When they returned to him he asked them: "What novelty did you hear in Yavneh?" They answered: "After you...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines a legal passage about a person entrusted with guarding a deposit. When a dispute arises about whether the guardian mishandled the property, t...
The students of a great teacher reported that he expounded a striking principle using the words of the prophet Jeremiah: "Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when it...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai offered his own parable to explain the same prophecy from Jeremiah, that a future redemption would overshadow the memory of the Exodus. His version is sharp...
The Mekhilta on damages sorts out which of two kinds of guardian is described in adjacent verses about an animal left in another's care. "And if it were stolen from him, he shall p...
"And if stolen, it shall be stolen from him", the Torah establishes that a paid guardian is liable when the entrusted animal is stolen. But the Mekhilta asks: what about loss? If t...
The Torah addresses the liability of a paid watchman with an apparently redundant phrase: "if stolen, it shall be stolen." The doubling of the word "stolen" in (Exodus 22:11) caugh...
(Exodus 22:12) discusses an animal that is "torn by a wild beast" while in a guardian's care: "If it were torn, let him bring ed." But what does "ed" mean? Two rabbis disagreed. Ra...
The passage from the Mekhilta on Tractate Pischa observes that while many biblical figures received new names, the name of Yitzchak was never changed, for he was called thus from t...
The Mekhilta presents a teaching that reaches back before the creation of the world itself. The names of the righteous. And their deeds, are known to God before they are ever born....
Moses commanded the people: "Remember this day when you went out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:3). The Mekhilta notices that this verse, taken alone, refers to the daytime, "this day." The ...
The Mekhilta records a dispute that the Passover Haggadah later preserves almost word for word. The sages parse the phrase commanding remembrance of the exodus "all the days of you...
Rabbi Nathan noticed something striking in the Torah's language about the Exodus. The text uses two verbs, "who brought up" and "who brought", when describing God's act of taking I...
What kind of attack by a wild beast exempts the guardian from payment? The Mekhilta defines the standard: the attack must be by an animal that the guardian could not reasonably be ...
Where does the obligation to say grace after meals. Birkat HaMazon, come from? The Mekhilta traces it to a single verse: (Deuteronomy 8:10), "And you shall eat and you shall be sat...
The Torah draws a sharp legal distinction between someone who watches your property and someone who borrows it. In (Exodus 22:13), the verse states: "And if a man borrow from his n...
Rabbi Chiyya ben Nachmani delivered a teaching in the name of Rabbi Yishmael that cuts against every natural human instinct. The verse in (Deuteronomy 8:10) already commands, "You ...
"And it be broken or die", the Torah lists two outcomes for a borrowed animal: it breaks (is injured by another animal) or it dies (of natural causes). But the Mekhilta asks: what ...
The Torah explicitly commands a blessing after eating, (Deuteronomy 8:10) states, "You shall eat and you shall be satisfied and you shall bless the Lord your God." But what about b...
The Torah establishes different levels of responsibility for different types of guardians. A hired watcher, someone paid to safeguard another person's property, bears liability if ...
Rabbi Nathan cited a verse from the story of the prophet Samuel to teach a lesson about the proper order of blessings and meals. The verse reads: "As soon as you enter the town, yo...
The Mekhilta raises one of the most characteristic questions in all of rabbinic literature: if a law can be logically deduced from another law, why does the Torah bother stating it...
Rabbi Yitzchak found a verse that establishes blessings both before and after eating. (Exodus 23:25) reads, "And you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and...
The Mekhilta examines a specific scenario in the laws governing borrowed property. If an animal passes from the domain of a lender to that of a borrower, even for a single moment, ...
Rabbi Yehudah ben Betheira noticed something peculiar in (Deuteronomy 8:10): "You shall eat and you shall be satisfied and you shall bless.. for the good land." The verse already m...
"If it were hired, it came by its hire", the Torah introduces a fourth category of guardian: the hirer. Someone who rents an animal occupies a middle ground between the unpaid guar...
Rabbi Chanina, the nephew of Rabbi Yehoshua, laid out the liturgical structure for communal blessing based on a verse from (Deuteronomy 32:3): "When I call upon the name of the Lor...
Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, taught a lesson about how Jews should respond whenever the name of a righteous person is mentioned. He cited (Proverbs 10:7): "The remembrance of the r...
This midrash of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael on the laws of damages weighs the responsibilities of different kinds of guardians over property entrusted to them. Jewish law recogni...
The verse (Exodus 13:3) states, "and chametz shall not be eaten." The passive phrasing, "shall not be eaten" rather than "you shall not eat", caught the attention of Rabbi Yoshiyah...
Rabbi Yitzchak disagreed with Rabbi Yoshiyah's reading of (Exodus 13:3), "and chametz shall not be eaten." He argued that the passive phrasing was not needed to equate the feeder w...
(Exodus 13:3) records Moses telling the people, "This day you go out, in the month of Aviv." The Hebrew word Aviv means spring. But the verse seems redundant, everyone present alre...
Rabbi Nathan offered a striking interpretation of the word bakosharoth from (Psalms 68:7), "He takes out the bound bakosharoth." Rather than reading it as a single word, he split i...
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, one of the most prominent Tannaitic sages, made a bold claim about why God chose to liberate Israel from Egypt. It was not because of anything the enslave...
Variantly (Psalms 68:7) "G–d settles the solitary in their homes. He takes out the bound bakosharoth. But rebels dwelling in dryness, etc.": They were rebels, in spite of which He ...
"This day you go out in the month of Aviv" (Exodus 13:3), a verse that seems to state the obvious. Of course Israel left in the month of Aviv (spring). The Torah already told us th...
(Exodus 13:5) states, "And it shall be, when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite." That is five nations. But J...
(Exodus 22:15) introduces the law of seduction: "And if a man entice a virgin." The Mekhilta explains why this verse is needed when the law of the rapist is already stated in (Deut...
Rabbi Yoshiyah tackled a question about the scope of the commandment of first fruits, bikkurim. (Deuteronomy 26:2) commands, "Then you shall take of all the fruits of the earth." R...
The Mekhilta draws a careful legal distinction between two cases that the Torah addresses separately: the ravished girl and the enticed girl. The difference between these two situa...
"Who is not betrothed", the Torah specifies that the seduction law applies to a virgin who has not been betrothed. The Mekhilta records a disagreement about the scope of this exclu...
(Exodus 13:5) speaks of the land "which He swore to your forefathers." The Mekhilta asks a direct question: where exactly in the Torah did God swear this oath to each of the patria...
