10,602 related texts · Page 57 of 221
R. Yonathan says (Devarim 6:8-9) "and you shall tie them … and you shall write them": Just as the writing (of the mezuzah (a parchment scroll affixed to doorposts)) is with the rig...
To teach us that as one metes it out to others, so is it meted out to him. Miriam waited a short time for Moses, viz. (Ibid. 2:4) "And his sister stood from afar to know what would...
When the Israelites saw the Egyptian army bearing down on them and the Red Sea blocking their escape, the Torah says they "were exceedingly afraid." But what did they do with that ...
The Mekhilta completes its tracing of prayer through the three patriarchs by turning to Jacob. The Torah says that Jacob "vayifga in the place and he spent the night there, for the...
The Mekhilta cites Jacob's blessing to Joseph — "I have given you an additional portion over your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Emori with my sword and with my bow" (...
The Mekhilta draws yet another proof of prayer's supreme power from Jacob's blessing over the tribe of Judah. The Torah declares: "A lion's whelp is Judah" (Genesis 49:9). On the s...
Rabbi Bana'ah taught that God split the Red Sea for the Israelites in the merit of their ancestor Abraham. The proof lies in a striking verbal parallel between two verses. When Abr...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a remarkable teaching by Shimon of Kitron about why God split the Red Sea for Israel. The answer has nothing to do with Moses raising his st...
Thus said the Holy One Blessed be He: What reward will accrue to the sons of Benjamin, who went down first into the sea? The reposing of the Shechinah in his portion (i.e., the Tem...
The Mekhilta draws attention to a pattern hidden in the Torah's language. The verse states, "And it was in the morning watch" (Exodus 14:24) — God looked down upon the Egyptian cam...
(Exodus 15:1) "Az yashir Mosheh": Az ("then") sometimes signals the past and sometimes signals the future. The past: (Genesis 4:26) "Az men began", (Exodus 4:26) "Az she said", (Ex...
The Mekhilta unpacks the declaration from (Exodus 15:6): "Your right hand, O Lord, is grand in power." The Hebrew phrase "nedari bakeach" is read as a compound — "na'eh" (comely) a...
Variantly: "You inclined Your right hand": We are hereby apprised that He cast them to the dry land, and the dry land cast them to the sea, saying: If for only accepting the blood ...
The Mekhilta offers a vivid and unsettling analogy for divine power over the nations. Picture a man holding eggs in his hand. He tilts his hand just slightly, barely a movement, an...
God told Moses to have the people ready "for the third day" (Exodus 19:11), and the Mekhilta identifies this as the sixth day of the month of Sivan — the day on which the Torah was...
The Mekhilta brings one more example to illustrate its principle about biblical language. (Ezekiel 43:2) describes the return of God's glory to the Temple: "And the glory of the Go...
R. Nathan says: Whence is it derived that the L–rd showed our father Abraham, Gehennom, the giving of the Torah and the splitting of the Red Sea? From (Genesis 15:17) "And it was, ...
Why is it written? It is deliberately superfluous to signal a gezeirah shavah (i.e., "identity"), viz.: It is written here (in Exodus) "Hebrew," and there (in Devarim) "Hebrew." Ju...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael presents a classic a fortiori argument, known in rabbinic logic as kal va-chomer, "from the light to the heavy." This particular kal va-chomer address...
Abraham called himself a stranger. (Genesis 23:4): "A stranger and a sojourner am I with you." David called himself a stranger. (Psalms 119:19): "I am a stranger in the land." And ...
The prophet Isaiah did. And his vision, described in the Book of Isaiah (6:1-8), has shaped Jewish understandings of God, heaven, and the very nature of holiness for millennia. Ima...
We, with our messy emotions and tear-streaked faces, tend to project a lot onto the Divine. But Jewish tradition actually gives us some incredibly vivid, even surreal, images of Go...
We often think of the afterlife in terms of reward and punishment, but Jewish tradition offers a richer, more nuanced picture. It speaks of palaces in heaven, shimmering with light...
It was a spectacle. The Targum Neophyti on (Exodus 20:1) describes it as shooting stars, lightning, and fiery torches all rolled into one. Can you picture that? A blazing, celestia...
There's a beautiful story, a whispered secret really, that suggests the fragrance of Shabbat (the Sabbath) comes from a very special spice. In fact, some say it’s actually called S...
The rabbis certainly grappled with it. There’s a fascinating story recounted in Tree of Souls, attributed to Rabbi Yohanan, about just this question. He challenged his students: wh...
We're not just talking about harps and halos. Jewish tradition paints a vivid, even delicious, picture of what awaits in the World to Come: a glorious banquet hosted by God Himself...
It’s about the birth of Armilus, a figure who looms large in Jewish messianic mythology as the ultimate false messiah. The story starts in Rome. Not just any Rome, but a Rome harbo...
That feeling, that confrontation with the vastness of creation, is something Jewish tradition wrestles with too. How do we, tiny humans, fit into this grand cosmic tapestry? Midras...
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That haunting opening line of Psalm 22… it's a cry that resonates across millennia. But what if I told you that within it, the ancient R...
The prophet Jeremiah, in the name of God, tells us no. "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom...but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am t...
You know, the Torah tells us that on the fourth day of creation, God made the two great lights (Genesis 1:16). But have you ever stopped to think about what that really meant? Acco...
Sammael, often identified with the angel of death or a rebellious force, is cast down from heaven along with his legions. It’s a cosmic demotion, a fall from grace that resonates w...
We mark it with Havdalah, a beautiful ceremony of separation. But have you ever wondered about the specifics, the absolute essentials of this ritual? Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fasc...
But that's precisely the reading we find in Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah, a fascinating early rabbinic text. The verse in Genesis (3:24) tells us God "drove out" (ויגרש, vayegaresh) ...
Specifically, we're looking at section 788 on the Book of Numbers, where the text grapples with a seemingly simple verse: "Every strike that takes a life requires witnesses" (Numbe...
Sometimes, it's not as straightforward as we might think. Our tradition is full of these little nuances, and they often reveal deeper truths." Seems simple enough. But, as the text...
Stories like the one we find hinted at in Sifrei Devarim 43. It all starts with Lot, Abraham's nephew. Remember him? We find him in Bereshith (Genesis) 13:10, choosing to settle in...
It wasn't just a difference of opinion, a harmless cultural practice. Oh no. According to them, idolatry was a spiritual cancer, a plague on the soul. Sifrei Devarim, one of the ea...
THERE WERE TEN GENERATIONS FROM ADAM TO NOAH. What need is there for mankind to [know] this? It is to teach you that although those generations provoked Him continually, the Holy O...
The Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 392 makes a breathtaking claim about the two stone tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai: they were not made from any earthly material. "The tablet...
Moses had the worst errand of his life. God told him to bring his brother up the mountain to die. He could not bring himself to say the words. Aaron said them for him. "My brother,...
Where do dreams come from? The Talmud in Berakhot 55a offers a surprisingly psychological answer: from the dreamer's own mind. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani taught in the name of Rabbi ...
The Talmud in Berakhot 57a catalogues an entire symbolic vocabulary of dreams—a dictionary of the unconscious, organized by category, where every image carries a fixed meaning. Ani...
When God gave the Torah at Sinai, the Israelites did not simply accept it freely. According to Shabbat 88a, Rabbi Avdimi bar Hama bar Hasa taught that God uprooted Mount Sinai and ...
The parable of the blind man and the lame man in the orchard, told by Antoninus to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in Sanhedrin 91b, establishes one of the Talmud's most important doctrines: b...
Pharaoh's daughter did not accidentally find Moses. According to Sotah 12b, she came to the river to immerse herself—not for bathing, but to wash away the spiritual impurity of her...
What does God do all day? The Talmud in Tractate Avodah Zarah takes this question seriously. The rabbis laid out a detailed twelve-hour schedule. During the first three hours, God ...
