10,602 related texts · Page 64 of 221
"The candle of God is the soul of man" (Proverbs 20:27). Chapter nineteen of the Tanya takes this verse and builds from it one of its most luminous teachings: the soul is a flame t...
Every commandment you perform sends a flood of infinite light into the physical world. That is not a metaphor. According to the Tanya of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, that is the ...
Before you put on your tallit in the morning, before you open a book of Torah, before you do anything holy at all, you need one thing first. Fear. Not terror. Not dread. Rabbi Schn...
There is a love of God so universal that every single Jewish soul possesses it, regardless of spiritual level. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi locates it in a verse from Isaiah that ...
There is a love of God that surpasses all the forms of love the Tanya has described so far. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi compares it to gold surpassing silver. It burns like fiery...
The most widely used section of Sefer Raziel HaMalakh in everyday Jewish life was not its theology or cosmology—it was its collection of amulets. Known as kame'ot (קמעות), these pr...
The heart of Harba de-Moshe (the Sword of Moses) is its catalog of divine names—and the greatest of these is the Great Name, composed of 70 component names. The number 70 is not ar...
The most dangerous part of the heavenly ascent described in Maaseh Merkavah (the Divine Chariot) is not the destination—it is the journey. At each of the seven gates leading to the...
Medieval Jewish magic was not freestyle improvisation. It was governed by strict rules, precise ingredients, and exact timing—a technology of the supernatural with its own internal...
"And the heart of Pharaoh was reversed" (Exodus 14:5). The Mekhilta reads this reversal not as a change of mind about letting Israel go, but as the collapse of an empire. When Isra...
He revealed Himself to them as a rider, viz. (Ibid. 18:11) "And He mounted a cherub and flew, etc." He revealed Himself to them in mail and helmet, viz. (Isaiah 59:17) "He donned r...
The Mekhilta interprets the phrase "to the habitation of Your holiness" as a reference to the Temple in Jerusalem. God guided Israel through the wilderness in the merit of the holy...
When Jethro heard "that the Lord had taken Israel out of Egypt," the Mekhilta draws a remarkable conclusion: the Exodus is not just one miracle among many. It is the miracle agains...
"Pay shall he pay, the lighter of the fire": Why is this written? From (22:4) "a man," I would know only of a man. Whence do I derive (the same for) a woman, a tumtum (one of indet...
Variantly: "You may not light a fire in all of your dwellings": From (Leviticus 6:6) "A perpetual fire shall burn on the altar," I might think, both on the weekdays and on the Sabb...
Rabbi Yonathan asked: what is the purpose of specifying "You shall not light a fire" when the Torah already prohibits all labor on the Sabbath? If all thirty-nine categories of lab...
The Mekhilta concludes its treatment of the Sabbath fire prohibition with a clean summary of the legal principle. Lighting a fire was one of the thirty-nine proto-labors forbidden ...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, explores this very idea. It begins with the image of a pit being dug. "A pit is dug and is excavated. All t...
But imagine that betrayal playing out on a national, even cosmic, scale. That's the drama we find ourselves plunged into in Midrash Tehillim 11, a fascinating exploration of Psalm ...
We all do, from time to time. But what if I told you there's a map, a guide, a presence that can illuminate even the deepest valleys? The mystics of old certainly believed it. They...
The ancient rabbis grappled with this feeling too, especially when thinking about our relationship with the land and with God. Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpreta...
Our sages certainly did. The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, dives deep into this very question. Specifically, it wrestles with (Psalm 78:4...
Think of it as a secret decoder ring for understanding the deeper layers of King David's timeless songs. Today, we're diving into a fascinating little nugget from Midrash Tehillim,...
We often take the everyday wonders around us for granted, don't we? Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings that illuminate the Book of Psalms, encourages us to do jus...
That feeling, that image, is something the ancient rabbis explored deeply in their interpretations of the Psalms. to one particularly vivid passage from Midrash Tehillim, a collect...
The story begins with a simple question. Rabbi Jochanan, noticing something amiss, asks Eliezer if he knows the Shema' (the central Jewish prayer affirming God's oneness), the Teph...
The Rabbi, in this telling, lays it out plainly: the angels, once dwelling in heavenly purity, gazed down and saw the daughters of Cain. Not just saw them, but saw them adorned, "w...
The story of the exile to Babylon, as told in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33, gives us a glimpse into that perilous time. Rabbi Tachanah recounts a dark period. Israel was exiled to Bab...
to a fascinating passage from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, specifically chapter 37, that wrestles with this very issue, focusing on the complex relationship between Jacob and Esau. The ...
The answer, my friends, might be more profound than you think. The text we're looking at comes from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and interpretations ...
It's a story of intense longing, divine protection, and a glimpse into the unknowable. Imagine Moses, up on Mount Sinai. He's already had quite the encounter with the Almighty, rec...
Our story begins with the verse from Ecclesiastes (3:11): "He has made everything beautiful in its time." The Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commen...
It might seem excessive at first glance – all those measurements, materials, and offerings. But within that detail lies a world of meaning. to a fascinating little corner of the Bo...
The Book of Numbers – in Hebrew, Bamidbar, meaning "in the wilderness" – is full of intricate details about the Tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the duties of the Levites. And withi...
We read these numbers in the Torah, these lists of animals offered in the Temple, and it’s easy to just glaze over them. But what if we paused, just for a moment, to consider the w...
It seems like a simple question, but in the world of Jewish law and tradition, even something as seemingly straightforward as who speaks to Moses first becomes a subject of deep co...
We often picture him as this towering, almost superhuman figure, but behind the miracles and the commandments, there was a real person grappling with a monumental task. And sometim...
He starts with the familiar verse from Ecclesiastes (Kohelet 1:4): "A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.” But he asks a piercing question: what ...
And the rabbis of old, they wrestled with this question too! The verse in Deuteronomy (16:6) tells us we should sacrifice the Passover offering "to the place that the L-rd your G-d...
The passage centers around (Deuteronomy 18:6), dealing with the rights and roles of the Levites. Now, who were the Levites? They were members of the tribe of Levi, designated for s...
According to Sifrei Devarim, a foundational text of Jewish law, it’s about respecting the very order of things. When (Deuteronomy 17:7) states, "all that I command him," it's not j...
One particularly striking passage from Sifrei Devarim explores this very idea, starting with a poignant scene. Imagine Moses, descending from Mount Sinai, tablets in hand, after th...
It’s a fascinating little passage, playing with the nuances of Hebrew grammar to make a profound theological point. The verse in question, ostensibly calling upon other gods for as...
It’s a profound question, one that our tradition grapples with in beautiful and surprising ways. Let's turn to the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), specifically Sifrei Devarim 346, f...
The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, offers us a beautiful glimpse into this idea, through its exploration of Moses'...
Jacob gathered his twelve sons around his golden bed to reveal the future. But something went wrong. According to Targum Jonathan, Jacob intended to show them "the hidden mysteries...
The completion of all the Tabernacle's furnishings and garments in (Exodus 39:1-43) should feel repetitive. The craftsmen were building exactly what God commanded. But the Targum J...
The final chapter of Exodus (Exodus 40:1-38) is, in the Hebrew Bible, the moment God's Presence fills the completed Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns this moment into a prophet...
