10,602 related texts · Page 189 of 221
The Torah mentions redeeming "the first-born of the unclean beast" in (Numbers 18:15), which could suggest that every unclean animal's firstborn must be redeemed. Camels, horses, d...
"among your sons shall you redeem": What is the intent of this? It is written (Numbers 18:16) "And redemption from one month"—general. "according to the monetary valuation, five sh...
(Ibid. 16) "And it shall be as a sign upon your hand, etc.": In four places, the mitzvah of tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) is mentioned: (Exodus 13:1-10) "Sanct...
(Ibid. 21) "And the L–rd went before them by day with a pillar of cloud": We find there to have been seven clouds: here, (Numbers 14:14) twice, (Ibid. 9:19), (Exodus 40:36), (Ibid....
When the Israelites left Egypt and marched into the wilderness, they did not travel unprotected. God surrounded them with clouds of glory—miraculous pillars that shielded, guided, ...
Of all the idols in Egypt, only one survived the plagues: Ba'al Tzefon. The Mekhilta explains that God deliberately left this single idol standing — and then commanded Israel to ca...
When Moses gave the order to turn back toward Egypt — seemingly marching straight into danger — the people obeyed without argument. The Mekhilta says: "And they did so." Three word...
The Mekhilta cites one of the most arrogant speeches in all of Scripture to illustrate the hubris of empire. The king of Assyria declared: "My hand found, as a nest, the wealth of ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel drew a startling comparison between two empires — Egypt after the Exodus and Rome in its prime — to illustrate how completely the departure of Israel had g...
The Mekhilta identifies three separate places in the Torah where God explicitly commanded Israel never to return to Egypt. Three warnings — not one, not two, but three — each in a ...
The Mekhilta reveals a pattern in God's use of wind as an instrument of judgment — a pattern that connects the destruction of Egypt at the Red Sea to two earlier catastrophes in hu...
The Torah records a transformation at the Red Sea: "And the people feared the Lord" (Exodus 14:31). The Mekhilta notes the significance of the word "feared." In the past, the Israe...
King Jehoshaphat marched his army into the desert of Tekoa and won a battle with nothing but faith. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic inter...
The Mekhilta continues its meditation on the Song of the Sea by enumerating the reasons God is worthy of song. "I shall sing to the Lord," the Israelites declared — and one reason ...
The Mekhilta concludes its extended discussion of Tyre and its ruler Malchah by citing the prophetic verdicts that sealed their fate — and then draws a sweeping theological conclus...
The Mekhilta presents a remarkable statement from the congregation of Israel, addressed directly to God, that explains exactly why they are singing at the Red Sea. "Lord of the wor...
"The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name" (Exodus 15:3). Rabbi Yehudah declares that this verse is extraordinarily rich — it illuminates truths that appear in many other pas...
"the L–rd is a man of war': What is the intent of this? Because He revealed Himself at the sea as a hero waging war—"The L–rd is a man of war"—and He revealed Himself at Sinai as a...
The Mekhilta takes the worldwide rejection of idolatry at the Red Sea and projects it forward into the future. What happened momentarily at the sea — when all nations opened their ...
The Song at the Sea declares, "Who is like You, nedar in holiness" (Exodus 15:11), and the Mekhilta finds a hidden layer of meaning compressed inside a single Hebrew word. The word...
The Mekhilta draws a sharp contrast between a human artisan and the divine Creator. When a mortal sculptor sets out to make a figure, he must build it piece by piece — starting fro...
The Mekhilta presents a second comparison between human artisans and the divine Creator — this time focusing on the problem of models. When a mortal craftsman is asked to make a fi...
The Egyptians drowned at the Red Sea — but they also received burial. The Mekhilta asks the obvious question: in what merit were the Egyptians granted burial? They had enslaved Isr...
The Mekhilta offers an alternate reading of the verse "You will bring them and You will plant them." The key word is "plant." God does not merely promise to place Israel in the lan...
The Mekhilta deepens its meditation on the Temple with a remarkable claim about divine craftsmanship. "The sanctuary, O Lord, did Your hands establish" — note the plural. Hands, no...
The Mekhilta tells a parable. Robbers break into a king's palace. They despoil everything of value. They kill the king's courtiers — his loyal servants, the people who maintained h...
Rabbi Akiva shares a story he heard directly from Rabbeinu Hakadosh — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law). The tale concerns a man...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a tannaitic commentary on Exodus compiled around the 3rd century CE, offers a remarkable teaching about the relationship between a student and a teac...
Shimon ben Azzai expanded his teaching about the doubled verbs in the Torah with an even more radical claim. The principle of "heed, you shall heed" does not only mean that heaven ...
When the Israelites ran out of food in the desert, they did not handle it well. (Exodus 16:2) records that "the entire congregation of the children of Israel caviled against Moses ...
Rabbi Yossi HaModai offered a clever observation about the order in which the Torah lists the foods the Israelites craved in the wilderness. In (Numbers 11:5), the people complain:...
The manna that fell in the wilderness was unlike any bread the Israelites had ever known. The Torah calls it "bread that is meshunneh" — bread that is "different" (Exodus 16:4). Bu...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
Moses and Aaron delivered a pointed warning to the Israelites who kept complaining about their food in the wilderness. The manna had been given with a "radiant countenance" because...
The phrase "they turned to the desert" in (Exodus 16:10) seems like a simple geographic note. The Israelites looked toward the wilderness, and there they saw the glory of God. But ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offered a remarkable tradition about Joshua the son of Nun and his unique relationship with the manna. (Psalms 78:25) says "He sent them sustenance to...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael tackled a precise question about the manna's daily lifecycle. (Exodus 16:21) states that "when the sun was hot, it melted." But what time of day does ...
When the manna melted each morning under the desert sun, it did not simply evaporate. According to the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, the melted manna formed streams that flowed all th...
Three miraculous gifts sustained Israel in the wilderness, and each one was tied to a specific leader. Rabbi Yehoshua teaches that when Miriam died, the well that had followed the ...
Moses would not give up. Even after God had decreed that he would not lead Israel into the Promised Land, he stood his ground and kept negotiating, trying every possible angle to g...
Moses refused to accept the verdict. After God told him he could not enter the Promised Land as a king or as a commoner, he came back with yet another proposal — each one more desp...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai examined the verse in which God tells Moses he will not cross the Jordan, and he declared: this verse is not needed. The Torah already states the same thing...
After every other plea had been rejected, Moses turned to his nephew Elazar — the son of his brother Aaron — and threw himself at his feet. "Elazar, my brother's son," Moses said, ...
The Torah's commandment to erase the memory of Amalek reaches to the farthest limit of destruction. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael explains the phrase (Exodus 17:14) "from under the...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai posed a question that pointed toward the end of history itself: When will the name of Amalek finally be erased from the earth? The answer was not tied to any b...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a fascinating tradition about the name of Jethro, Moses's father-in-law. His name was not always Jethro. In the beginning, the Torah calls h...
The Mekhilta notices something peculiar about how the Torah identifies Yithro. In the beginning of the story, Moses is the one who boasts about the relationship. When Moses returns...
The verse says that Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law "before God." But the Mekhilta raises an obvious question: where was Moses himsel...
