10,602 related texts · Page 113 of 221
(19) On New Year's Day all the inhabitants of the world pass before Him, Kibne Maron. What is the meaning of Kibne Maron? Here (in Babylonia) they translated it "like sheep." But R...
(24) (Fol. 21b) It is written (Ps. 12, 7) The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver refined in the crucible of earth, purified seven times. Rab and Samuel both explain it. On...
The Jews being prevented by decree from studying, Pappos met R. Akiba who had defied that decree. Rebuked by Pappos Akiba replied: “A fox on the shore of the sea saw some fish hidi...
When the heathen conquered the Temple Josef Meshita was asked to go in first. He was told that whatever he brought out should be his. He carried out a golden candlestick, which was...
Miriam and her seven sons died as martyrs for their holy faith. Each of her sons refused to worship idols quoting the appropriate passages from the Bible. When the last boy was cal...
Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimeon was not a small man, and the Talmud does not hide this fact. Multiple stories describe his extraordinary physical size, his immense strength, and — as thi...
A farmer once looked at his fields and made a calculation that seemed clever at the time. The Torah commands that a tenth of every harvest must be given as a tithe. The farmer deci...
There was a man who owned a prosperous vineyard and a cellar full of casks — fine oil and rich wine, the fruits of years of careful labor. He was wealthy by any measure. But he had...
Rav Hisda used to hang an open purse at his doorpost so that anyone who needed money could take some without being seen. This detail, preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compil...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 75a) records a breathtaking vision of the future Jerusalem: its gates would be made of single pearls, each pearl so enormous that it could be carved into a g...
R. Shimeon b. Yob ai prevented tribulations overtaking the world and therefore no rainbows appeared to warn it of calamity. The prophet Elijah and R. Joshua b. Levi met him and he ...
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua were sailing across the Mediterranean when a terrible storm seized their ship. Winds howled, waves crashed over the deck, and the vessel was driven...
Rabbi Yohanan went to visit Rabbi Elazar, who lay gravely ill in a dark room. The sick sage had been declining for days, his body wasting, his spirit dimming. The room was as dark ...
Mar Ukba learned that a certain poor man in his town had once been wealthy — a man accustomed to fine food, comfortable furniture, and the pleasures of an affluent life. Poverty ha...
A man entrusted a single dinar to a woman for safekeeping. She placed the coin in a jar of flour — a common hiding place in the ancient world — and promptly forgot about it. Days l...
On a Sabbath day, several children fell into a well. The community was thrown into a terrible dilemma: the Sabbath prohibits most forms of work, including the kinds of physical lab...
A pious woman used to bake four loaves of bread every day; three she gave to the poor and one she kept for her household. One day four beggars came and she gave all the four. She t...
Hiram, king of Tyre, was one of the most audacious men in all of scripture. God had given him wealth, beauty, and a lifespan that stretched across centuries — some sages say he liv...
When Alexander the Great conquered the known world, he did not merely defeat armies — he rearranged the claims of nations. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 91a) records that after his conques...
Merodach-Baladan, the king of Babylon, once experienced something that shook his understanding of the natural order. The Talmud records that he noticed the sun behaving strangely —...
King Monobaz of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism, opened his family's treasuries during a year of famine and distributed everything to the poor. His brothers and his father's family ...
A woman was entrusted with a single dinar for safekeeping. She placed it in a jar of flour, forgot about it, and later unknowingly baked it into a loaf of bread. When a poor man ca...
The rabbis took the washing of hands before meals with deadly seriousness — and the Talmud (Yoma 83b, Hullin 106a) preserves stories showing why. A man once neglected to wash his h...
The sages of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asked a question that seems simple but opens onto infinity: where does all the water in the rivers go? Every river on ea...
The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 27b) preserves a disturbing account of the dangers that healing spells could pose to the rabbis. Ben Dama, the nephew of Rabbi Ishmael, was bitten by a ser...
Bar Hedya was a professional dream interpreter in the Talmudic era, and the Talmud (Berakhot 56a) reveals his scandalous method: he interpreted dreams based not on their content bu...
The sages taught that even when tragedy strikes at a moment of celebration, the celebration must not be disrupted. The Midrash (Pesikta 169b, Tanhuma Shemini) records an extraordin...
Rabbi Akiba was once traveling by ship when a terrible storm struck. The waves rose like mountains, the wind tore at the sails, and the vessel broke apart beneath the passengers' f...
Of all the questions that have haunted the Jewish people across the centuries, none has burned hotter than this one: when will the Messiah come? The Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin (3...
Rabbi Akiba was the greatest sage of his generation, but even he could not escape the anxieties of a father. The astrologers had warned him: his daughter was destined to die on her...
A desperately poor woman came before the prophet Elijah with nothing in the world except a single coin. She had no family to support her, no trade to sustain her, and no prospect o...
The tale of "Half a Friend" is among the most widely circulated stories in medieval Jewish ethical literature. It poses a question that cuts to the heart of human relationships: wh...
Rabbi Akiba and the pearl — a story about how the greatest treasures are sometimes hidden in the most unlikely places. The tale is preserved in medieval collections including the M...
Korah's riches were legendary — and his fall was proportional to his wealth. The Talmud (Pesahim 119a, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:1) and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer describe a fortun...
A man hid his gold in a set of clay jars — the ancient equivalent of a safe deposit box — and the story of what happened to those jars became a parable about the fragility of earth...
A Jewish man and a gentile once made a wager about whose religion was true. Satan, disguised as an ordinary man, appeared and ruled in favor of the gentile, who took all the money....
Gehenna (Hebrew: Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death); Greek: Geenna) originated as "the valley of the son of Hinnom," south of Jerusalem, where child sacrifi...
Dreams have at all times and among all peoples received much attention. In the youth of a nation, as in the youth of an individual, dreams are so vivid that they appear to be hardl...
The evil eye is a supposed power of bewitching or harming by spiteful looks, attributed to certain persons as a natural endowment. This belief was widespread among ancient civiliza...
The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accor...
A psalm of Asaph opens this section of Aggadat Bereshit: "God has made Himself known in Judah; His name is great in Israel" (Psalm 76:2). And immediately the rabbis add the verse f...
Jewish tradition has some pretty amazing, awe-inspiring imagery about that very question. Imagine this: a God of pure, untamed power, riding not on a cloud, but on the very wings o...
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...
To have a little piece of the Garden of Eden right in your own backyard... or, in this case, your own tent flap? Jewish tradition paints a beautiful picture of Sarah's tent, offeri...
would rest his head. God then performed a miracle and made all the stones into one. According to another tradition, Jacob placed all the stones under his head and they were fused t...
What happens to the abandoned? What happens to the children left to the elements, victims of cruelty and fear? Sometimes, stories offer us the most profound answers. Think about th...
It's not just random geography. It's a lesson in humility and the power of inner space. The Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, opens with the famous line: "The Lord spoke to Mose...
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...
