10,602 related texts · Page 86 of 221
Jewish tradition has an answer, a fascinating and somewhat unsettling one, and it involves the very corners of the earth. Imagine the world as a sort of cosmic compass. According t...
The story of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, is full of them. And according to the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commentary on the Bible, Haman's plot to annihil...
Jewish tradition certainly grapples with this idea, especially when considering the long and often painful history of exile. In the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commen...
It’s not as simple as drawing lines on a map! Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection of rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Numbers, sheds some light on this. We learn that when t...
It wasn't just about wise judges in flowing robes, you know. It was also about… bailiffs. Yep, the folks tasked with keeping order, sometimes with a little more… persuasion. Sifrei...
The text starts by pondering the phrase "who can do as Your deeds" (Deuteronomy 3:24). Sifrei Devarim finds echoes of God's power in two pivotal moments of our history: the Exodus ...
We often think of great scholars, perhaps, or those who dedicate their lives to prayer. But Jewish tradition sometimes surprises us. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal inter...
We find this idea woven throughout Jewish tradition, particularly when we explore the concept of being a chosen people. But what does it really mean to be chosen? The book of Sifre...
We're diving into a tiny phrase from the book of Deuteronomy, Devarim, to unpack just that. It's a seemingly simple line – "and he lie with her" – but within it lies a whole univer...
It’s a question that’s been pondered for centuries, and one little verse in Devarim (Deuteronomy) offers a fascinating glimpse into the reverence the ancients held for the unspeaka...
The text paints a rather unflattering portrait of the Israelites, calling them "hafachpechanim" – turncoats, those who are inconsistent – and "runabouts." Ouch. But it gets even mo...
The verse references Shimon, one of Jacob's sons, and it says, "His (Shimon's) hands did battle for him." This echoes a passage from Genesis (Bereshith 34:25), "And there took, two...
It's more than just a feeling. Our tradition teaches us it's literally built on the border between two tribal territories: Benjamin and Judah. But how can that be? We read in Genes...
We often think of the biblical tribes as these monolithic entities, but they were families, prone to squabbles and reconciliation just like us. Take the tribe of Asher. What made t...
A scribe’s nightmare? Perhaps. A treasure trove of textual insights? Absolutely! According to Sifrei Devarim 356, that's exactly what happened. And the differences weren't major pl...
The passage we're looking at focuses on the phrase "until the western sea." Now, on the surface, it sounds like a geographical marker. But the Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, saw...
Genesis 10 is the Table of Nations—a genealogy listing Noah's descendants and where they settled. In the Hebrew Bible, it reads like a census. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a p...
The Ten Commandments in (Exodus 20) are a list in the Hebrew Bible. In the Targum Jonathan, they are a spectacle. Each commandment is a living entity of storm and flame that flies ...
Bezalel built the Ark, the Table, the Candelabrum, and the Incense Altar in (Exodus 37:1-29). The Hebrew text describes each object's dimensions. The Targum Jonathan explains how a...
The Flood was all of twelve months,1R. Eliyahu from Vilna explains that according to Seder Olam a year about which no details are given is a simple, regular year of 354 days follow...
The Talmud records some of the most intimate prayers ever spoken—personal confessions the great Sages whispered after their formal prayers were complete. According to Berakhot 17a,...
Who wrote the Hebrew Bible? The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b provides a complete accounting, attributing every book to a specific author. Moses wrote his own book—the Torah—and also th...
The Hebrew Bible says God "shut him in" the ark (Genesis 7:16)—a strangely intimate image of the Creator personally closing Noah's door. Targum Onkelos renders this as "God protect...
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is unlike any other day in the calendar — and according to Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah, a midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic work traditi...
The Holy One created twenty-two good attributes in His world. All of them were nullified and in the future the Holy One will return them to Israel in the time to come. They are: fo...
These are the ten exiles which the precious Children of Zion have been exiled: Israel was exiled by Sennacherib in three expulsions; they were exiled afterward by Nebuchadnezzar wi...
The tribe of Asher received its inheritance in a strip of land along the northern coast of the Land of Israel, and the blessing that Moses gave them proved spectacularly true: "Let...
A mother had several sons, and the older brothers murdered the youngest. It was a killing born of jealousy — the kind of fratricidal violence that echoes the very first murder in t...
The earliest Hebrews believed the dead descended into Sheol — a colorless underworld where all souls, righteous and wicked alike, lingered in shadow (Isaiah 14:15). Only the rarest...
Three figures pray and God delights in it: Moses, David, and the Messiah. This is the claim Aggadat Bereshit makes from (Proverbs 15:8) — "the prayer of the upright is His delight....
"Until the day breathes and the shadows flee" (Song of Songs 2:17). Israel in exile asks: how long? The kingdoms that rule over them are the shadows — empire after empire, each cas...
Leah was hated — or unloved, depending on the translation, but the Hebrew is harsh — and God saw it (Genesis 29:31). This is where Aggadat Bereshit begins: with the divine attentio...
Maybe you drove past a friend's house without stopping, or forgot to say thank you to someone who deserved it. Imagine that feeling, amplified on a biblical scale. The Torah tells ...
We usually think of it as a given, part of the grand, sweeping narrative of the Exodus. But what if the waters had their own say? According to some fascinating midrash (rabbinic in...
Jewish tradition has a way of blowing your mind with concepts like that – especially when we delve into stories like the Exodus and the Binding of Isaac. Imagine this: the Israelit...
That's the situation the sons of Kehat found themselves in, in the Book of Numbers. Our story begins in Bamidbar Rabbah, specifically section 5, which delves into the passage about...
We stumble upon one such instance in Bamidbar Rabbah, specifically in chapter 6. It concerns the census of the Kehatites, a clan within the Leviim (Levites). The text points out so...
It turns out, even ancient texts grapple with these questions, offering surprising insights into universal ethics. to Bamidbar Rabbah, specifically section 8. This isn't your typic...
We find in Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah) 9, a fascinating, and frankly, a bit intense dive into the laws surrounding a suspected adulteress, the sotah. It’s a passage that pulls...
Our journey begins with a rather dramatic scene from (Numbers 5:21), describing the ritual of the sotah, the woman suspected of adultery. The priest says, "May the Lord render you ...
This Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpretive commentary on the Book of Numbers, opens with a verse about the nazir, someone who takes a vow to abstain from cert...
Today, we're diving into a fascinating story from Bamidbar Rabbah 10, a section of the larger Midrash Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic homilies and interpretations of the Torah. It...
This passage in Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives deep into the laws surrounding the nazir (or nazirite) – an individual who takes a...
The Book of Ecclesiastes puts it perfectly: “All this I attempted with wisdom; I said: I will become wise, but it is distant from me” (Ecclesiastes 7:23). This feeling, this yearni...
It’s a question that echoes through the ages, and our sages have pondered it in countless ways. The verse from (Ecclesiastes 8:1), "Who is like the wise man, and who knows the mean...
God Himself steps in to clarify Pinḥas's lineage. But why now? What did God see that prompted this? The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 21,...
The Torah tells us, "When you besiege a city…you shall not destroy its trees" (Deuteronomy 20:19). Seems pretty straightforward. Protect the environment, even in wartime. But then ...
We often think of creation as this grand, instantaneous act. But what if I told you that even in the very beginning, there was a sense of…guidance, even sorrow? That’s what I’ve be...
