10,602 related texts · Page 190 of 221
R. Yitzchak took the lesson about serving others and elevated it to cosmic proportions. If we want to find someone greater than both R. Gamliel and Abraham in the act of serving, h...
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, watched Moses judging the people alone from morning until evening and proposed a radical restructuring of the judicial system. He recommended ap...
The Mekhilta preserves a remarkable story about the descendants of Rechav — also known as the Rechabites, a family that had taken a perpetual vow to drink only water, never wine, a...
Rabbi Eliezer transmits a teaching in the name of Abba Yossi ben Dormaskith that exposes one of the most unsettling truths about God's relationship with Israel. The verse says: "An...
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...
God made a striking declaration to the Israelites at Sinai: "You have seen what I did to Egypt" (Exodus 19:4). The Mekhilta emphasizes that God was not asking the people to accept ...
When God offered the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, the entire nation responded with one of the most remarkable declarations in all of Scripture. As the Mekhilta explains,...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a different reading of the events at Sinai, one that elevates Moses's stature even further. He argues that we would only need to "acknowledge th...
God commanded the Israelites to "wash their garments" in preparation for receiving the Torah at Sinai (Exodus 19:10). The Mekhilta asks a follow-up question that the Torah itself d...
The Torah states that God descended onto Mount Sinai "before the eyes of all the people" (Exodus 19:11), and the Mekhilta draws a startling conclusion from those words: if even a s...
The Torah states that "when the ram's horn sounds" the people may ascend Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:13). The Mekhilta reads this literally: when the shofar "draws out" its sound — when...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a different solution to the question of how Moses derived the requirement for marital separation before receiving the Torah. Rather than relying...
The Talmudic sage known simply as Rebbi — Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — raised a striking question about the greatness of M...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael tackles a puzzling question about the Ten Commandments. If all ten were spoken individually, why does the Torah present them as a unified declaration ...
The Mekhilta unpacks a subtle but powerful argument that God makes to Israel. The verse reads: "As the deeds of the land of Egypt in which you dwelt you shall not do" (Leviticus 18...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael identifies a crucial legal distinction hidden in the commandment "There shall not be unto you other gods." The question is deceptively simple: what ex...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines the phrase "before My presence" in the prohibition against idolatry, asking what this seemingly redundant qualifier adds. The answer reveals ...
"For this the L–rd blessed the Sabbath day and He sanctified it": He blessed it with the manna (by providing a double portion on the sixth day), and he sanctified it with the manna...
After the overwhelming experience of hearing God's voice at Sinai, the Israelites retreated. (Exodus 20:18) records: "And the people stood from afar." The Mekhilta specifies the di...
When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the Torah records that "Moses entered into the mist, where God was" (Exodus 20:21). The Mekhilta reveals that this approach to...
Rabbi Nathan drew a sharp line between what Israel experienced at Sinai and what the rest of the world perceived. The nations heard about the revelation. Israel saw it. That differ...
The book of Job presents one of the most profound tests of faith in all of Scripture. Job loses everything — his wealth, his children, his health — and his wife urges him to curse ...
If the prohibition against "gods of gold" addresses making extra cherubs beyond the commanded two, what does the additional prohibition against "gods of silver" teach? After all, t...
R. Eliezer b. Yaakov says: If you come to My house, I will come to your house. And if you do not come to My house, I will not come to your house. The place that My heart loves, the...
Rabbi Yishmael examined a verse about the priests serving at the altar and found a surprising teaching hidden inside what appeared to be a redundancy. The verse warns: "so that you...
R. Eliezer says: This (inclusion) is not needed. If a Jew serves, how much more so a proselyte!—But perhaps (I would say) If a Jew serves six years, a proselyte should serve twelve...
"Six years shall he serve" — from this simple statement, the Mekhilta derives a ruling about sick bondsmen. If a Hebrew bondsman fell ill and was unable to work for the entire six-...
Where exactly on the ear is the bondsman pierced? The Mekhilta records a dispute between two authorities. Rabbi Yehudah said the piercing goes through the lobe — the soft, fleshy p...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a dramatically different reading of the three marital obligations listed in (Exodus 21:10). Where Rabbi Yoshiyah identified "she'eirah" as food ...
The Torah says the Hebrew maid-servant "shall go out free" if her master fails to fulfill his obligations (Exodus 21:11). The Mekhilta probes the meaning of the word "free" with a ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a legal teaching from Rabbi Nathan that resolves an apparent contradiction in the Torah's laws about monetary obligations. On the one hand, ...
The Mekhilta debates the physical dimensions of the refuge space that a person who killed accidentally was confined to. The previous passage established that even in the wilderness...
The Mekhilta now draws the ultimate conclusion from the legal hierarchy it has been constructing. Murder overrides the sacrificial service. This is established. But saving a life o...
The Torah contains a dramatic command about a murderer who has taken refuge at the altar: "From My very altar shall you take him to die" (Exodus 21:14). Even the holiest place in t...
The Torah says a person who strikes his father or mother "shall be put to death" (Exodus 21:15), but it does not specify the method of execution. The Mekhilta identifies this silen...
The Torah states plainly: "If a man be found to have stolen a soul" (Deuteronomy 24:7). This is the law against kidnapping, one of the gravest crimes in Jewish jurisprudence, punis...
The Torah states that a kidnapper "shall be put to death" (Exodus 21:16), but does not specify the method of execution. The Mekhilta identifies the method as strangulation. But how...
The Mekhilta asks yet another question about the verse "And if one curses his father and his mother." From (Leviticus 20:9), which says "every man who curses," we would know only t...
Rabbi Yoshiyah pushed the question of women in injury law even further. If men and women are truly equated, he argued, why does the Torah mention either gender at all? Let neither ...
When a man strikes another and the victim recovers — "if he arise and walk outside upon his staff" — the Torah says "the striker shall be absolved" (Exodus 21:19). Absolved of what...
The Mekhilta explores a subtle legal distinction between two types of compensation: ripui (medical expenses) and sheveth (work-disability payment). When it comes to medical expense...
"And heal shall he heal" — the Torah doubles the word "heal," and the Mekhilta mines this repetition for legal content. If the victim was healed once but then relapsed, and was hea...
"And they hit a pregnant woman, and her fetuses miscarry" — Abba Chanin asked in the name of Rabbi Eliezer: why does the verse bother saying "a pregnant woman"? If her fetuses misc...
The Torah addresses a troubling scenario in (Exodus 21:22): two men are fighting, and in the chaos, a pregnant woman gets struck. The blow causes her to miscarry. Who pays? And to ...
(Exodus 21:26) "And if a man strike the eye of his (Canaanite) man-servant": What is the intent of this? From (Leviticus 25:26) "Forever shall you have them serve you," I might thi...
"the eye of his man-servant": I might think (that he goes free) even if it developed a leucoma; it is, therefore, written "and he destroy it." Only a blow that causes destruction (...
The Mekhilta addresses a precise scenario: what happens when a master knocks out two of his bondservant's teeth — or blinds both eyes — simultaneously, in a single blow? The ruling...
This tells me only of eating. Whence do I derive that it is even forbidden to derive benefit from it?—Do you ask? If follows a fortiori, viz.: If it is forbidden to derive benefit ...
