453 related texts · Page 36 of 51
The Book of Esther, or Megillat Esther, is full of those moments. And the story of Vashti, the queen who defied a king, is no exception. The Megillah tells us that King Ahasuerus, ...
How would you hold onto your identity? That's the challenge Esther faced, according to Ginzberg’s retelling in Legends of the Jews. She was living in the palace, a world away from ...
It tells us, "Go and observe the ant, lazybones!" (Proverbs 6:6). But what does that really mean? According to a beautiful teaching in Midrash Mishlei, this little verse packs a po...
We read in the book of Numbers that "all those counted were six hundred three thousand, five hundred and fifty" (Numbers 1:46). But numbers in the Torah are never just numbers, are...
In the book of Numbers, Bamidbar, we find a census being taken. But there's a twist. "However, the tribe of Levi you shall not count" (Numbers 1:49). Why this exclusion? Bamidbar R...
It seems like such a simple detail, but the Torah dedicates a lot of space to describing the precise arrangement of the tribes around the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And the Rabbis, n...
But Midrash Rabbah, specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 2, reveals a fascinating layer of meaning beneath the surface. "The children of Israel did in accordance with everything that the L...
The verse we're focusing on is from the Book of Numbers (3:17): "These [eleh] were the sons of Levi by their names…" Now, Rabbi Abbahu makes a crucial observation about the word el...
It wasn't a random free-for-all. The Book of Numbers gives us a fascinating glimpse into a highly structured encampment around the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And Bamidbar Rabbah, a c...
