96 passagesc. 6th–7th century CEHebrew / AramaicCC0
Individual passages from Pesikta Rabbati, shown in source order. Page 1 of 2.
It will be, from new month to new month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh will come to bow before Me," said Hashem (Isaiah 66:23). Teach us, our teacher, a person from Israel...
When you stand for the Grace after Meals on the New Moon and forget to mention it, the Sages ruled that if you catch the lapse at once you simply close with a short blessing praisi...
Teach us, our master, from when does the mitzvah of the Channukah lamp begin? Our rabbis taught – from when the sun sets until the majority of people are gone from the marketplace....
The simple law of the Chanukah lamp opens a much larger window. The Sages set when to kindle it, where to place it, and that its light must not be used for ordinary work, then expl...
This teaching from Pesikta Rabbati, a collection of midrashic homilies arranged around the festivals and special Sabbaths, takes up an apparent difficulty in the conduct of Joseph ...
Why does the prince of Manasseh offer only on the eighth day, after Ephraim on the seventh, when Manasseh was the firstborn? The answer begins with a leftover lamp. If oil remains ...
Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name (41:18:31). May our Rabb...
When Elijah rebuilt the broken altar on Mount Carmel, he gathered exactly twelve stones, one for each tribe of Israel. The midrash treats that count as a clue to how the world hold...
… it is written there “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You…” (Melachim I 8:27) and here it is written “…the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.” (Sh...
On the day Moses finished raising the Tabernacle, something old came home. The midrash hears in the word that opens the verse, vayehi, the meaning "a thing that had been, ceased, a...
Another explanation. “And all the work that king Solomon had wrought in the house of the Lord was finished.” (Melachim I 7:51) What does ‘all the work’ mean? It was built by itself...
When Scripture says the work of Solomon's Temple was "ended," the midrash hears two things at once: a man who was diligent, and a building made of peace. Solomon spent thirteen yea...
The one who offered his sacrifice on the first day was Nachshon ben Aminadab of the tribe of Judah (Numbers 7:12). Our Rabbi, the one who offered the sacrifice to the altar, taught...
Once the Tabernacle stood, the tribal princes pressed Moses to know who would bring the first offering. God's answer was simple: the one who sanctified My name at the sea goes firs...
Teach us, oh master – may one light a lamp for personal use from the Channukah lights? Our masters taught us – R’ Acha said in the name of Rav ‘it is forbidden to light a lamp to u...
The law that you may kindle one Chanukah lamp from another, but not borrow its flame for ordinary use, sends the midrash searching through every meaning of light. The Sages traced ...
May our Rabbi teach us what a man from Israel is who is permitted to recite the blessing over the cup when it is not removed. Rabbi Acha, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, a cup of bl...
The sages once asked how to hold a cup over which a blessing is made. It must be rinsed clean, crowned, and full, held in the right hand a handbreadth above the table, the eyes fix...
When God commanded Israel to give a half-shekel for the census, Moses was confused. Not by the amount, half a shekel was nearly nothing, a laborer's loose change. What baffled him ...
The phrase that opens the census is strange. The Torah does not say "count" the children of Israel; it says "lift the head" of the children of Israel. The rabbis heard a parable in...
The rabbis asked a strange question: why did King Solomon compare Israel to a walnut? Not a cedar, not a vine, not wheat, a walnut. Rabbi Yehoshua of Sichnan, speaking in the name ...
Israel endure, the midrash insists, by the small commandments tied to the soil. Balaam himself marveled, asking who could count the dust of Jacob — and the rabbis read that as the ...
"Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deuteronomy 25:17). God remembers the righteous for good and the wicked for destruction. When He recalled Abraham, He spoke with affection: "Shal...
When Amalek attacked Israel at Rephidim, the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses to write it down as a memorial. Moses balked: a memorial is the honor we give the righteous. The an...
From Ephraim, who wrote in Amalek after you, Benjamin (Judges 5:14). May our Rabbis teach us what a person should say when he reads the Book of Esther. The Talmud teaches us that o...
Deborah's song names a strange detail: out of Ephraim came those whose root strikes at Amalek, and after them, Benjamin. The midrash reads this as a verdict set in motion long befo...
Our rabbis taught: An incident once took place with a Jewish man who had one cow [which he used] for ploughing. [Then], his hand [fortune] was diminished and he sold her [the cow] ...
The portion of the red heifer opens with the word "statute," the kind of law whose reason stays hidden. The midrash frames it with two stories about animals and what they reveal ab...
The first commandment given to Israel as a people is about time. "This month shall be for you the head of the months." The midrash asks why a moon was needed at all, since the sun ...
The command to bring the daily offering seems to picture God as needing to be fed. The midrash dismantles that idea with a verse: "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the w...
The Torah does not say the plague fell "at night." It says it fell at the exact center of the night, and the rabbis seized on that precision. No mortal can locate the true midpoint...
A single sheaf of barley does not look like much. It is the food of poverty and of animals, brought a tenth of an ephah at a time, after a season of plowing, sowing, weeding, hoein...
Roman law and rabbinic law agree on this: a deposit is not yours. If a man leaves goods in your keeping and you reach in to take them, you owe him, and the sages add a sharper line...
Every corner of the known world smelled like paradise the day King Solomon completed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Pesikta Rabbati, a collection of midrashic (rabb...
When the Torah was about to be given, the whole world shook, and the nations ran to Balaam for an explanation. He could only tell them the truth: this was not a second flood, not t...
One story, found scattered in sources like Pesikta Rabbati and Yalkut Re'uveni, centers around a figure known as the Prince of Darkness. God, about to begin Creation, turns to the ...
One intriguing answer involves a rather obscure, but incredibly important angel: Gallizur. Gallizur isn't exactly a household name like Michael or Gabriel. But according to some my...
Hadrian thought he had caught the Torah in an embarrassment. God's name, he noted, is woven into the first five commandments but absent from the last five about murder, theft, and ...
The midrash measures the third commandment against the sea. God set the sand as a boundary, and the sea, vast as it is and created as a single thing, has never once risen to flood ...
Every other day of the week has a mate. The first day pairs with the second, the third with the fourth, the fifth with the sixth. Only the Sabbath stands alone, and the midrash ima...
A place of purification, and for some, punishment. Now, even in this fiery realm, the Sabbath casts its protective light. It's a concept that speaks volumes about the power and san...
The midrash imagines the kings of the world rising from their thrones to applaud, not at the thunder of Sinai but at a command about parents. Their own laws, they admit, treat enro...
On Friday at dusk, with the light fading, three questions ring through a household before the Sabbath lamp is lit: Have you tithed the produce? Have you set the eruv? Is the lamp r...
Jeremiah said: when I was coming up to Jerusalem, I lifted up my eyes and saw a woman sitting on the mountaintop, her clothes were black and her hair unkempt. She cried: I am seeki...
Some prophets are sent to bless. Jeremiah was formed in the womb to mourn. The sages count him among four men whom Scripture calls "formed" by God: Adam, Jacob, Isaiah, and Jeremia...
That feeling, that echoing emptiness, resonates deeply with the Jewish experience of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It wasn't just the loss of a building; it was a cos...
The Temple, the very center of Jewish life, engulfed in flames. What happens when the unthinkable becomes reality? The Talmud (B. Ta'anit 29a) recounts a powerful image: the High P...
The image of Mother Zion comes from a deep well of sorrow and longing, born from the exiles and devastations that mark Jewish history. She's not just a symbol, but a living, breath...
