838 related texts · 4 related myths · Page 2 of 18
There is a moment when a poor person walks up to a wealthier neighbor and asks for a loan. The wealthier neighbor has a choice. He can treat the moment as a market opportunity. Or ...
When we look at texts like the Book of Jubilees, we see just how far that went. The Book of Jubilees, considered scripture in some traditions, particularly Ethiopian, offers a uniq...
In it, we find a stark warning, a line drawn in the sand regarding actions so egregious that they warrant the ultimate penalty. The passage states, “And for this law there is no co...
The Torah is full of these moments, these transitions, these reminders of our own mortality. And the Book of Jubilees, that fascinating text that expands upon Genesis, Exodus, and ...
The Book of Jubilees, also sometimes called Lesser Genesis, is a Second Temple Jewish retelling of Genesis and Exodus that was not included in the Hebrew Bible but survived in impo...
Book of Jubilees turns to Jubilees Takes Sabbath Violations Deadly Seriously. This ancient text, considered scripture by some but not included in the standard Hebrew Bible, expands...
The Book of Maccabees I turns to Sabbatical Year Leaves Judea Without Food Stores. After a victory, King Antiochus, not one to admit defeat, refocuses his energy. He's got his sigh...
Book of Jasher turns to Moses and Mount Sinai's Transgression. The story picks up right after the Israelites leave Rephidim. They arrive in the Sinai wilderness in the third month ...
For a second. Six different names, each hinting at a different facet of that earth-shattering moment. It’s like trying to describe a diamond – you can So, what are these names? And...
It wasn't just a chaotic mass of people wandering aimlessly, that's for sure. According to the traditions, there was a real method to the madness, a divinely inspired order. The st...
The tradition says Moses himself called Asher the "favorite of his brethren." Why? Well, it's said that during the shmita years – the sabbatical years when the land was left to res...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, explores the deepest mysteries of the Torah. And in section 104, it gives us a interpretation of the shofar blast...
The phrase "and I brought you to Me" refers to the moment God gathered Israel before Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. But Rabbi Akiva added a detail to this scene that transforms ...
The Mekhilta offers yet another interpretation of "And all the people saw", this one focused not on the nature of the experience but on the spiritual state of the Israelites who re...
R. Eliezer says: to apprise us of the exalted state of Israel. When they all stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, there were no blind ones among them, viz. "And all the peopl...
(Exodus 23:10) commands: "Six years shall you sow your land." Rabbi Eliezer taught that this verse reveals two different agricultural realities, depending on Israel's spiritual sta...
The Torah says, "Six days shall you do your work" (Exodus 23:12), a commandment to labor for six days and rest on the seventh, the Shabbat (the Sabbath). But the Mekhilta noticed s...
They’ve journeyed far, and now, they're about to experience something beyond comprehension. Exodus 19 tells us that on the third day, as morning broke, the atmosphere crackled with...
It is often remembered as a moment of pure revelation, of divine gift-giving. But some ancient stories paint a picture far more…intense. A picture of near annihilation and miraculo...
You're not alone. But have you ever wondered why that wall, of all the Temple, still stands? There are many explanations, of course, both historical and theological. But Jewish tra...
The story, as told in Midrash Tehillim, is truly terrifying. Moses, up on Mount Sinai, receiving the Torah. A moment of ultimate revelation. And down below? The Israelites, succumb...
Picture Moses on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, wrapped in cloud and fire. No clocks, no sunrise, no sunset as we know it. So how did he know when it was day and when...
The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and somewhat enigmatic work of aggadic literature, offers a glimpse into that pivotal moment. It paints a picture of the Torah's power, li...
The prophets of Israel knew that feeling all too well. They saw their people straying, falling, losing their way. And they weren't afraid to call it out. But more importantly, they...
What about everyone else? Well, Sifrei Devarim 311 sheds some light. It interprets the verse about consulting "your elders, and they shall say it to you" (Deuteronomy 32:7) as a re...
The ancient text of Sifrei Devarim offers a powerful image of finding something precious in just such a place. It starts with the verse, "He found them in a desert land" (Deuterono...
Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrashim (rabbinic interpretive commentary) (interpretations) on the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us a fascinating breakdown. It suggests there...
The revelation at Sinai is awe-inspiring in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan on (Exodus 19) makes it terrifying. It adds details about God physically uprooting the mountain, I...
When did God become "magnified"? Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 10:2 answers: at the moment the heavens and earth came into being. And for whose sake did God create them? For Isr...
Not just any mountain, but Mount Sinai itself, the very place where God met Moses. It’s a mind-bending image, isn't it? That's how some of our tradition describes the moment of rev...
In Bereshit Rabbah, the classic collection of Rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis, there was some serious competition involved. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive comme...
In Kohelet Rabbah, one of the most beautiful compilations of rabbinic thought on the Book of Ecclesiastes, the answer might surprise you. "Who is like the wise man?" Kohelet Rabbah...
The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet, is part of the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible. Kohelet Rabbah, a Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) commentary on ...
What did he eat? Did he even sleep? to what Shemot Rabbah, a classical collection of Rabbinic homilies on the Book of Exodus, tells us. The verse from (Exodus 34:27), "The Lord sai...
It all revolves around the verse in (Song of Songs 8:2): "I would lead you, would bring you to my mother's house, that you would teach me; I would give you to drink from the spiced...
The familiar story is this: Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Epic. But what about the moments before a...
It's not always pretty, but it's definitely revealing. Someone observing a community with customs they just… don't get. That's kind of what The text we're examining paints a pictur...
When a Hebrew slave chooses to remain in servitude rather than go free at the end of his six-year term, the Torah prescribes a specific ritual: his master takes an awl and bores th...
Take this one from Sifrei Devarim (Deuteronomy 15:13-14). It deals with releasing a Hebrew servant after six years of service, and the obligation to "bestow upon him", to give him ...
Everything has a purpose. And that purpose has a purpose of its own, each one higher than the last. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov uses this insight to explain why you must judge every p...
There exists a soul in every generation through whom Torah insights are revealed to the world. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov describes this soul as one burdened with suffering: "Bread w...
The Torah lists the patriarchs in a specific order: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In (Exodus 3:6), God introduces Himself to Moses at the burning bush as "the God of your father, the ...
The Mekhilta, the halakhic midrash on Exodus from the 2nd century CE, examines one of the starkest either-or passages in the Prophets. Isaiah delivers God's ultimatum: "If you acqu...
The prophet Micah painted one of the most beloved images in all of Jewish prophecy: "And each man will sit under his grapevine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afra...
How often must a person inspect their tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) to make sure the scrolls inside are still intact? The Mekhilta derives the answer through a...
R. Yossi says: It is written (Isaiah 45:19) "Not in secrecy did I speak, in a place of darkness, etc." In the very beginning, when I gave it, I did not give it in secret or in a da...
(Ibid. 4) "You shall not make for yourself an idol (lit., "a carving")": I might think that he may not make one that projects but he may make one that is flat. It is, therefore, wr...
(Exodus 21:2) "If you buy a Hebrew man-servant": Scripture here speaks of one sold by beth-din (to pay for what he has stolen), in which instance he serves both the father and the ...
