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According to Rabbi Elazar, it's justice. That’s why, as Shemot Rabbah tells us, God gave us laws after the Ten Commandments. If justice is perverted, everything crumbles. God, in h...
It’s a question that takes us to the heart of Jewish thought, and to a fascinating passage in Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus. The pas...
The ancient rabbis wrestled with this, too, and their insights, preserved in Shemot Rabbah, are surprisingly relevant today. The verse from Hosea (14:3) says, "Take words with you ...
It sounds strange, but Jewish tradition explores the idea that certain special figures in our history were known by multiple names, each reflecting a different facet of their chara...
Rabbi Abahu tells us that for all forty days Moses spent up on the mountain, he was studying Torah… and forgetting it just as quickly. Can you imagine the frustration? "Master of t...
That, in a nutshell, is the tragedy of the Golden Calf. But how quickly did things really fall apart after the revelation at Sinai? The rabbis of the Midrash wrestle with this very...
In fact, they found an answer – a surprising one – in the power of remembering the righteous dead. Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus, de...
He was trying to save the Israelites from destruction, and the story goes something like this… God, seeing the Israelites’ transgressions, essentially challenges Moses. "Find me te...
It wasn't just handed to us on a silver platter, so to speak. According to the ancient rabbis, receiving the Torah at Sinai was contingent on something quite surprising: finding su...
