2,211 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Yalkut Shimoni on Torah, shown in source order. Page 30 of 47.
Why does Scripture call idols "other gods"? One reading of the word turns on its very sound. The Hebrew for "other," acherim, echoes the verb for delaying, me'acharim. So the sages...
The sages keep turning the single word "other" over in their hands, and each turn reveals another face. Here they read it not as a description of the idols themselves but as a verd...
The rabbis pile interpretation upon interpretation on the word "other," and the readings widen from wordplay into history. First the plain charge: an idol is a stranger even to the...
The Torah here reads like a hunter closing every escape route. The Torah says, "You shall not make a graven image, or any likeness," and the sages walk the prohibition through ever...
A reader might assume that idolatry is a single act, that one is only guilty when they both bow and serve in one continuous gesture. The sages dismantle this assumption by setting ...
The discussion opens by pairing a punishment with its warning. Scripture decrees that one who sacrifices to other gods shall be destroyed, but a punishment needs a prior prohibitio...
The phrase "a jealous God" can unsettle a reader. Does it mean the Holy One, blessed be He, is gripped by jealousy the way a person is, consumed and controlled by it? The midrash a...
The word "jealous" in the commandment might seem to color the whole of how the Holy One, blessed be He, relates to His people. The sages narrow it sharply. The jealousy has one tar...
Roman philosophers came to the Jewish elders with a sharp question. If the God of Israel truly does not want people worshiping idols, why does He simply allow them to exist? Why no...
Why does nature reward theft and adultery as readily as honest labor? If a man steals a measure of wheat and plants it, justice would demand the stolen seed refuse to grow. If a ma...
Agrippa the commander challenged Rabban Gamliel about the verse naming God jealous. People only envy their equals, he argued, the wise over the wise, the strong over the strong, so...
The Torah says plainly that fathers shall not be put to death for sons, and each person dies for his own sin. So why does the same Torah elsewhere warn that God visits the sin of f...
Rabbi Yose ben Chanina taught a striking idea. Moses, in his final words and warnings, pronounced four harsh decrees over Israel. Later, four prophets rose and softened each one, p...
The verse says God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon sons to the third and fourth generation. The Rabbis ask a precise question. Does this mean punishment falls only when the...
The Torah promises kindness to those who love God and keep His commandments. Who exactly are these people? One reading says those who love Me means Abraham and souls of his stature...
The third commandment forbids taking God's name in vain, and the Sages read it far more broadly than casual cursing. Even reciting an unnecessary blessing, dragging the divine Name...
The rabbis drew a sharp line. For most negative commandments, you are flogged only when your hand actually does something forbidden. Words alone usually do not earn lashes. But thr...
What does it actually look like to swear in vain? The rabbis gave vivid examples, and the point sharpens with each one. You swear that a stone pillar is solid gold. You swear a man...
When a court puts a man under oath, it does not begin with the question. It begins with a warning, and the warning starts at the moment the world held its breath. They tell him: kn...
How can one mouth speak two opposite words at once? At Sinai, the rabbis taught, God did exactly that. The Exodus tablet says "Remember the Sabbath day," while the Deuteronomy tabl...
The command to remember the Sabbath is not left as a feeling in the heart. The rabbis grounded it in a cup. "Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it" means: speak its holiness alou...
"Six days you shall labor and do all your work," the commandment says. The rabbis caught the impossible promise hiding in those words. Who has ever finished all their work in six d...
One sage pressed the meaning of Sabbath rest even further. It is not enough to stop your hands from labor. Rest even from the thought of labor. The prophet Isaiah said it plainly: ...
The Sabbath command names a whole household: you, your son, your daughter, your servants, and the stranger. The rabbis read each word closely. The sons and daughters meant here are...
The Torah binds three honors with a single knot. "Honor your father and your mother" stands beside "Honor the LORD from your wealth" (Proverbs 3:9). Fear of parents stands beside f...
What does it actually mean to "honor" a parent? One might assume it is a matter of speech, kind words offered now and then. The midrash cuts that short by reading the commandment a...
The verse "Any man who curses his father" could be read narrowly, as though only a son bore the obligation. The midrash refuses that reading. By pairing it with "Honor your father ...
If Torah promises long life for honoring parents and for sending away the mother bird, why not list all the rewards plainly so we can pick the most profitable commandments? Rava's ...
Why does the Torah bother to command "You shall not murder" when it has already decreed death for one who sheds blood, in "One who sheds the blood of man" (Genesis 9:6)? The midras...
The school of Rabbi Yishmael reads "You shall not commit adultery" with unsettling breadth: let there be no adultery in you, by hand or by foot. Rabbi Elazar links this to Isaiah's...
Here the midrash completes the case for reading "You shall not steal" as the ban on kidnapping. The Torah elsewhere declares, "One who steals a man and sells him" shall be put to d...
The Torah famously deals with the conspiring false witness through the law of retaliation in kind: "You shall do to him as he conspired to do to his brother" (Deuteronomy 19:19). I...
The Rabbis pictured the two tablets of Sinai not as two random halves but as a deliberate design, with each commandment on the right facing its partner on the left. Read across, th...
What does it actually mean to break the commandment "You shall not covet"? Is a passing flash of envy already a sin? The Rabbis worked through the verse with their interpretive too...
Scripture says something strange about the moment at Sinai: "all the people saw the voices." Voices are heard, not seen. The Rabbis refused to smooth this over and instead drew out...
How does an infinite voice reach a finite ear without shattering it? The Rabbis answered with a single principle, then surrounded it with wonders. The voice at Sinai was made of fi...
After the first commandments, Israel begged Moses to stand between them and the fire: "You speak with us, and we will hear." The Rabbis read this not as weakness but as the moment ...
When the people trembled, Moses calmed them: "Do not fear." The Rabbis paused to admire the feat itself. To stand before thousands upon thousands and myriads upon myriads, all of t...
The verse draws a sharp line at Sinai: the people stood far off, but Moses drew near. The Rabbis lingered on how near, and into what. The word for where the speaking came from, "th...
The Torah says the people "stood far off" at Sinai, and the Rabbis would not leave the distance vague. They assigned it a measure: twelve mil. And from that single number they reco...
Moses walked into the place no one else dared enter. Past the darkness, past the dense cloud, into the thick gloom where God spoke. The midrash asks the obvious question: what gave...
The pagan keeps score with his gods. When the harvest is good he offers thanks; when famine strikes he curses heaven and throws the idol in the fire. His worship is a transaction, ...
The sages turn a hard truth into a treasured one. Beloved are sufferings. Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai counts three gifts the nations envy Israel for, gifts that came only at the price ...
The prohibition against images closes one last loophole. A person might admit he does not intend to worship the figure at all. He only wants it for beauty, a fine ornament for the ...
Resh Lakish reads two adjacent verses in Deuteronomy as one warning. First the Torah commands, "Judges and officers you shall appoint," and immediately after it says, "You shall no...
The verse "an altar of earth you shall make for Me" sounds simple, but the sages mine every word of it. The first reading hears "for Me" as a demand for exclusivity: the altar must...
The sages noticed a small word doing enormous work across the whole of Scripture. Two letters in Hebrew, "for Me," attached by God to certain things. And wherever that phrase lands...
The Torah says, "and you shall sacrifice upon it," speaking of the altar, and the sages weigh exactly what "upon it" means. Does an animal get slaughtered on top of the altar itsel...
