316 related texts · 8 related myths · Page 6 of 7
Even Moses, our great leader, faced such dilemmas, and the stories of how he navigated them are They reveal not just his wisdom, but also a glimpse into the Divine hand at play in ...
It's really. Take, for instance, a seemingly straightforward verse about offerings in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar). and see what the Sifrei Bamidbar, an ancient rabbinic commenta...
The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, digs deep into what it truly means to "serve Him." We find a fascinating discus...
The story of Rabbi Akiva and the fox on Mount Scopus perfectly captures that feeling. A group of scholars is making their way to Jerusalem. As they reach Mount Scopus, a place offe...
Our ancestors certainly did. Deuteronomy, the book of Devarim in Hebrew, is full of practical instructions for how the Israelites were meant to live in the land. And tucked away in...
Rabbi Shimon, a sage whose insights continue to resonate, offers a fascinating perspective. He suggests that the verse in question isn’t just about listing rules, but about establi...
It's not a casual topic. It strikes at the very core of our relationship with the Divine. The Sifrei Devarim, a crucial legal commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, explores the co...
What Being 'Cut Off' From Israel Really Means is the question behind this passage from Sifrei Devarim. Rabbi Shimon enters the scene to offer a fascinating interpretation. He's loo...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Kingdom of Titus. Sifrei Devarim attributes a particularly audacious statement to Titus, interpreting the verse "he" as referring not to God but to the nati...
They saw layers of connection, echoes of stories past, and whispers of divine intent in every word. Take, for instance, a passage from Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Book o...
Five persons are not granted forgiveness:1The meaning is not that the doors of forgiveness are for ever shut against them, but that they are so hardened in sinning that they will n...
The incense altar, the half-shekel tax, and the anointing oil in (Exodus 30:1-38) all receive remarkable expansions in the Targum Jonathan. What the Hebrew text presents as ritual ...
The collection of materials for the Tabernacle in (Exodus 35:1-35) is, in the Hebrew Bible, a straightforward account of voluntary giving. The Targum Jonathan inserts miracles that...
The final chapter of Exodus (Exodus 40:1-38) is, in the Hebrew Bible, the moment God's Presence fills the completed Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns this moment into a prophet...
The Targum Jonathan delivers one of its harshest legal rulings in Leviticus 17: anyone who slaughters a sacrificial animal outside the Tabernacle is treated "as if he had shed inno...
Transporting the Tabernacle was the most dangerous job in ancient Israel. The Targum Jonathan makes clear that one wrong glance at the sacred vessels meant death by divine fire. Wh...
The day after Korah's company was swallowed by the earth, the people of Israel accused Moses and Aaron of murder. God sent a plague. And Aaron did something no other priest would e...
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...
Teach us o teacher: toward where should one who prays orient his heart? This is what our Rabbis taught: one should orient his heart toward the place of the Holy of Holies (Berachot...
Story of Eldad the Danite, Narrative B In the name of the LORD God of Israel, blessed be His name, of our God the King, King of kings, Who chose Israel from among all nations and g...
(8) With whose opinion does our Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) agree? Neither with that of R. Maier, nor with that of R. Juda, nor with that of R. Jose, nor with that ...
Simeon b. Kamhith, a high priest, walked about with a heathen king and got his clothes defiled and was incapacitated from acting on the day of atonement. His place was taken by his...
Rabbi Akiba laughed when everyone else wept. And his laughter changed the course of Jewish faith. The first time was in Rome. Rabbi Akiba and his colleagues walked through the stre...
During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the storehouses had been burned by Jewish zealots to force the city to fight. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, walking through the streets a...
Her name was Tzafnat, daughter of Peniel, and her father had been high priest of Israel. She had grown up in the holiest household in the land, with the aroma of incense in her clo...
King Manasseh of Judah reigned fifty-five years, longer than any other king of David's line, and the book of Kings accuses him of a staggering catalog of evils (2 Kings 21:1-18). H...
Rabbi Isaac noticed something in the book of Eicha, the Lamentations read on the Ninth of Av every year. "Her children are gone into captivity before the enemy" (Lamentations 1:5)....
A woman was left in the care of her brother-in-law while her husband was away on a long journey. The brother-in-law pressed her to commit adultery. She refused. Furiously, he accus...
Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy preserves a strange detail about the fall of the First Temple. When the Babylonian conquerors carried away the holy vessels, they did not carry away t...
Four rabbis were on the road to Rome. Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva traveled together, and while they were still one hundred and twenty ...
Kings are remembered in lists, and the sages kept careful accounts. For Hezekiah, they drew up two columns. On one side, the three things they praised him for. First, he dragged th...
On a lonely road, Rabbi Akiva met an ugly, exhausted man bent double under a massive bundle of firewood. "I adjure you," Akiva said. "Tell me, are you a man, or are you a demon?" "...
When Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Talmud tells us, he did not content himself with fire and slaughter. He stripped the Temple of its sacred vessels, wrapped them in the vei...
Before he walks down the mountain, Abraham offers one more prayer. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:14), the Aramaic paraphrase turns the Hebrew's terse place-naming into a...
When Jacob woke from his ladder-dream, he was shaken. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:17) spells out what exactly had shaken him. How dreadful and glorious is this place....
After the brothers threw Joseph into the pit, they sat down to eat. Then they looked up and saw a caravan. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:25) gives the caravan an unexpected...
The Torah says God made the midwives "houses." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (1:21) tells us exactly what those houses were. "And forasmuch as the midwives feared before the...
The construction of the Mishkan is described in Exodus 26 with a catalog of measurements and materials that reads, The first reading, like an architect's invoice. Ten curtains of f...
The most electric line in this chapter of the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is hidden inside a description of a priestly accessory. On (Exodus 28:30), the text explains what the Urim and ...
Why did the high priest's robe need bells at all? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 28:35) gives the quiet, terrifying answer. Its voice shall be heard at the time that he hath...
Seven days of atonement, and then the altar was something else entirely, not a piece of furniture, not a table of stone, but kodesh kodashim, the altar of the Holy of Holies. Targu...
Once the anointing oil had been compounded and the vessels of the sanctuary had been touched with it, they were no longer ordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes what happened t...
On the second ascent of Sinai, God proclaimed His own Name to Moses in a formula that Jews have recited in every generation since. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of...
Where did the onyx stones for the high priest's ephod come from? The Torah does not say. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:27) tells one of the strangest mineral-supply stor...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:28) continues the miraculous supply chain it began in the previous verse. The clouds of heaven returned, and went to the garden of Eden, and to...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:11) turns the consecration of the bronze laver into a vision of the distant future. Anoint the laver, the meturgeman says, on account of Jehosh...
There is a quiet moment in the construction of the Tabernacle that the text almost hurries past. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:21) captures it: Moses brought the ark into th...
The altar of burnt offering was the first thing anyone saw on approaching the Tabernacle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:29) places it exactly there, at the gate, before the ...
