309 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, shown in source order. Page 3 of 7.
Ephron the Hittite looked at Abraham and saw not a grieving husband burying his wife, but a wealthy man to be squeezed. He offered the cave "for free," then named a price of four h...
The verse says, "Trust in the LORD and do good," but Rabbi Yitzchak flips the order: do good first, then trust. He tells a small parable to explain why. A tax assessor comes throug...
"Honor the LORD with your substance," says Proverbs, and the rabbis read "your substance" as "whatever He graced you with." Were you born handsome? Then guard your conduct, so no o...
Proverbs praises the woman who "does not fear the snow, for all her household is clothed in scarlet." The rabbis turn this into a meditation on judgment and protection. Chizkiyah d...
Isaiah declares that "the land is defiled beneath its inhabitants," and Rabbi Yitzchak hears a sharp warning in the word for defiled, which can also mean to flatter or deceive. You...
Long before Sinai, says Rabbi Chuna, the patriarchs were already setting aside the holy portions. Abraham gave the great terumah when he lifted his hand to God and refused the spoi...
In his final oath of innocence, Job swore, "If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together." The rabbis first hear arrogance in the phrase. They imagine others chal...
Daniel's prayer confesses, "To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, and to us shame of face." The midrash gathers a series of moments when God's patience put His people to shame. Ra...
The Torah's plainest food laws turn out to carry a hidden weight. A carcass is forbidden food, and the sages teach that produce a farmer keeps for himself before separating the tit...
The command to tithe hides a promise inside the Hebrew word itself. The sages hear in "aser" (tithe) the echo of "titasher" (grow rich), and they read God's voice in it: Tithe what...
The chapter that opens the Exodus march begins with a quiet proverb: when the LORD is pleased with a man's ways, He makes even his enemies be at peace with him. The sages chase tha...
A single line from the Psalms becomes the key to Egypt's downfall. "How awesome are Your deeds," the verse cries, and Rabbi Yohanan hears in it an almost informal cheer for the Mas...
Rabbi Ishmael frames Pharaoh's fate with one of the sharpest parables in the midrash. A king sends his servant to the market for a fish, and the servant comes back with a rotten on...
A difficult verse in Isaiah asks whether God strikes the way human oppressors strike. The sages answer that He does, but with perfect symmetry. Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Nehemiah debat...
Hannah's prayer carries a warning that the sages turn into a verdict on Egypt: let no arrogance come from your mouth. The proud words of an oppressor do not vanish; they come back ...
The nations taunted Israel as they left Egypt: after generations under Egyptian masters, who could say whose children these really were? The sages answer with a parable. A king lea...
The verse opens with the word that sounds like a cry of grief, and the sages hear in it the wailing of Egypt. Who is the one sobbing "woe"? Not Israel marching free, but the Egypti...
When God led Israel out of Egypt, He overturned the ordinary order of things at every turn. Rabbi Levi, in the name of Rabbi Chama bar Chanina, counts eight reversals, and each one...
Scripture says the road out of Egypt was "near," and the sages turn the word over to find layers of nearness. Near was the reckoning waiting for Pharaoh. Near, too, was an old kind...
God turned Israel away from the direct road because He feared that the sight of war would break their nerve and send them running back to Egypt. The rabbis ask whose failure stood ...
The single Hebrew word that describes Israel going up from Egypt becomes a doorway to several readings. On its plain face it means they marched out armed, equipped with five kinds ...
While the whole nation rushed to gather the spoils of Egypt, one man kept a four-hundred-year-old promise. Moses spent the night of departure searching for the bones of Joseph, who...
The rabbis certainly grappled with it. There’s a fascinating story recounted in Tree of Souls, attributed to Rabbi Yohanan, about just this question. He challenged his students: wh...
The Pesikta DeRav Kahana, a collection of Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) teachings, gives us a glimpse, almost a first-hand account. Rabbi Yochanan, a prominent sage,...
King David, the sweet singer of Israel, lifts his soul toward heaven in his psalm, and the sages hear in that opening a prayer not for himself but for others. David bows his very s...
Three rabbis traveled to study the laws of the libations with Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and lingered three days. Each time they rose to leave, he opened with a verse about the rainbo...
For thirteen years Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and his son Eleazar lived hidden in a cave, eating wild carobs until their skin grew rough and crusted. When Rabbi Shimon finally stepped...
Walking through the fields during the sabbatical year, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai noticed a man gathering the aftergrowth that the law of the seventh year forbids. "My son," he said, ...
Donkey drivers came to town hoping to buy grain and found young Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon seated by the oven. His mother kept handing him fresh bread, and he kept eating, l...
Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon accepted an appointment from the Roman authorities to hand over criminals for execution. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha disapproved sharply, calling hi...
Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon visited his father-in-law, Rabbi Shimon son of Yose son of Lakonya, who welcomed him lavishly. He slaughtered an ox, baked a full batch of bread, ...
Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon pressed his father-in-law about a strange verse: "Your garment did not wear out upon you" (Deuteronomy 8:4) during forty years in the wilderness. ...
Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon had been appointed a Roman officer over forced labor, proud of his enormous physical strength. One day the prophet Elijah, remembered for good, ca...
As Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon lay dying, his arm slipped uncovered, and he saw his wife both laughing and weeping. He told her he understood both. She laughed in gratitude f...
Rabbi the Patriarch carried a quiet ache. Whenever he walked into the study house and saw Rabbi Eleazar son of Rabbi Shimon, his own face would cloud over. His father did not softe...
The Torah uses doubled words, and the sages refused to let the repetition pass as mere emphasis. When Scripture says Joseph "surely adjured" Israel, the doubling becomes a chain of...
Rabbi Judah son of Simon began with a verse in praise of a worthy woman: many have done well, but you have outdone them all. He read it as a ledger of obligation stretching from th...
Rabbi Yochanan reached for a line from the Psalms in which a person sings of being saved from a stronger foe, and he heard the exodus inside it. The strong enemy is Pharaoh, the ve...
Rabbi Isaac took the lovesick verse of the Song and read it as Israel's hunger for God. "Sustain me with cakes" he heard as "sustain me with fires," and named the fires that proved...
Rabbi Yochanan opened with a strange line from Hosea about buying a wife for fifteen pieces of silver, a measure of barley, and then a half measure, and he turned the whole transac...
Rabbi Avun opened with a verse from Proverbs about "noble things in counsels and knowledge," and the sages played on the word that can mean both "threefold" and "officers" or "warr...
The prophet's line in Isaiah gathers three divine acts into one breath: I declared, I saved, I proclaimed. The sages anchored each verb to a moment in Israel's birth as a people. T...
The Preacher taught that everything has its season, and the rabbis read that verse as a map of sacred history. There was a fixed hour for Adam to enter the Garden, and a fixed hour...
Wisdom announces in Proverbs that she walks the way of righteousness, right down the middle of the paths of justice. The rabbis let the Torah speak in her own voice and ask the que...
Proverbs observes something tender and true. The heart alone knows the bitterness of its own soul, and an outsider cannot really share in its deepest joy. Rabbi Yonatan first reads...
The Song of Songs sings that the beloved is like an apple tree set among the ordinary trees of the forest. Three sages turn that single image over and find three faces in it. First...
The simple phrase "in the third month" sets off a cascade of royal parables, each one a wedding scene. A king betroths a noblewoman and fixes the date, and when the day comes every...
The Torah's arrival in the third month opens onto a teaching from Proverbs, "Have I not written for you noble things in counsels and knowledge?" The plain message is an invitation....
