1,302 related texts · 51 related myths · Page 1 of 28
“If it pleases the king, let it be written to eliminate them and I will weigh out ten thousand talents of silver by the hands of the king's craftsmen, to bring to the king's treasu...
The essence of life comes from prayer. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov derives this from a single verse: "Prayer to the God of my life" (Psalms 42:9). Prayer is not merely an appeal to th...
"Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deuteronomy 25:17). God remembers the righteous for good and the wicked for destruction. When He recalled Abraham, He spoke with affection: "Shal...
"And you, raise your staff": Ten miracles were performed for Israel at the sea: The waters were split and became like a dome, viz. (Habakkuk 3:14) "You split (the sea) for his trib...
When the Torah says "tomorrow," does it mean the next day or some distant point in the future? The Mekhilta demonstrates that the word carries both meanings, depending on context. ...
(Exodus 16:35) "And the children of Israel ate the manna for forty years": R. Yehoshua says: for forty days they ate the manna after the death of Moses. How so? Moses died on the s...
For forty long years, as they wandered, they had a constant companion: a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. The Torah tells us, in (Exodus 13:21), "And Yahweh w...
During the war with Amalek, the Israelites were losing whenever Moses's hands grew heavy and fell. Aaron and Hur took a stone and placed it under him so he could sit and raise his ...
Victory in the Amalek battle came through Joshua, but the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan insists the sword was not his alone. "And Joshua shattered Amalek, and cut off the heads of the str...
After the battle ended, God gave Moses a strange commandment: not to celebrate, but to write. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads it this way: "Write this memorial in the book of the ...
This is the verse that unlocks the whole story. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the plain Hebrew leaves as silence: "For Aaron had seen Hur slain before him, and was afraid; a...
When family reunites, the first thing out of the mouth is usually the story of what was survived. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Moses's account to Jethro in condensed form: "M...
(Exodus 16:26) "Six days shall you gather it, etc.": We are hereby apprised that the manna does not descend on Sabbath. Whence do we derive (the same for) a festival? From (the sup...
The Mekhilta records a disagreement between two sages about the verse "And they came to Marah" (Exodus 15:23). Rabbi Yehoshua says that Israel came to three places at that time. Ra...
Can I really do this?" It's a universal struggle, and even Joshua, the future leader of Israel, felt it. Our story unfolds just after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, with t...
(Exodus 13:18) "And G–d led the people circuitously by way of the desert to the Red Sea": in order to perform miracles and mighty acts with the manna and the quail and the well. R....
(Exodus 17:14) "And the L–rd said to Moses: Write this as a remembrance in the book and place it in the ears of Joshua": The early elders said: So is it with all the generations. T...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:21) watches a miracle change its posture. By day the "glory of the Shekinah of the Lord" went before Israel in a column of cloud to lead th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps one detail from the Hebrew and clarifies another. Miriam, the sister of Aaron, is called the prophetess. She takes a tambourine, and all the women come...
If Moses's song is a national anthem, Miriam's song, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, is a moral theorem. She sang to the women: Let us give thanks and praise before the Lord,...
(Exodus 16:28) "And the L–rd said to Moses: How long will you refuse to keep, etc.": R. Yehoshua says: The Holy One Blessed be He said to Moses: Moses, say to Israel: I took you ou...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
"The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" (Psalm 110:1). This verse launches one of the most complex readings in Aggadat Bereshit, about how the Holy One loves and exalts ...
"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord" (Psalm 112:1). The rabbis asked: what ultimately happens to him? And they landed on Ecclesiastes: "In the end, everything will be heard, fea...
Joseph was brought down to Egypt (Genesis 39:1). Lamentations gives the frame: "Good is the man who sits alone and is silent, for he will bear the yoke upon himself. He will put hi...
After the Amalek battle, Moses built an altar. But the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the name he carved into it with surprising precision: "The Word of the Lord is my banner; fo...
During the battle against Amalek, Moses stood on a hilltop with his arms raised, channeling divine power to the Israelite warriors below. But holding your arms up for hours is grue...
It's all tucked away in a short but potent verse from Sifrei Devarim 313, a midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) text on the Book of Deuteronomy. The verse says, "He built ...
(Exodus, Ibid. 21) "And the L–rd went before them by day": We are hereby taught that as one metes it out to others, so is it meted out to him. Abraham accompanied the ministering a...
Some places carry the scar of what happened there in their very name. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains that Moses called the site of the water-crisis "Temptation and Strife", in...
The familiar story is this: Moses, the parting of the waters, a miraculous escape. But what if there was someone else there, seeing even more than meets the eye? That someone was S...
They've just been liberated from slavery in Egypt, they're being miraculously fed with manna – that heavenly bread that just appears each day – and, according to the lore, they're ...
Amalek. You might remember Amalek from the Bible – this was the nation that attacked the Israelites shortly after their miraculous Exodus from Egypt. It seemed like a small skirmis...
The Torah says simply that Pharaoh "harnessed his chariot" (Exodus 14:6). The Mekhilta reads those four words as a revelation of just how consumed Pharaoh was by his obsession to r...
(Exodus 14:7) "And he took six hundred choice chariots": Whence came the horses required for the chariots? If you would say, from Egypt, is it not written (re the plague of pestile...
(Exodus 15:4) "the chariots of Pharaoh and his host": "As one measures, so is it meted out to him." They (the Egyptians [i.e., Pharaoh]) said (Ibid. 5:2) "Who is the L–rd that I sh...
(Exodus 15:20) introduces Miriam with a curious title: "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." The Mekhilta immediately spots the problem. Miriam was the sister of both Aaron and Mo...
(Exodus 15:22) "And they went out to the desert of Shur": This is the desert of Kazav. They said about the desert of Kazav that it was nine hundred parasangs by nine hundred parasa...
(Exodus 15:26) "And He said: If pay heed, you shall pay heed": From here it was derived: If a man paid heed to one mitzvah, he is caused to pay heed to many mitzvoth (commandments)...
The sun beats down, the sand stretches endlessly… and you’re thirsty. Really thirsty. What would you give for a cool, refreshing drink? Well, according to tradition, the Israelites...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Miriam's Well and the True Meaning of Tzedakah. The Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, offers a fascinating perspective. It asks, "...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:13) paints the arrival of the manna with a detail you will not find in the Hebrew: the dew was holy, and it was prepared as a table, round abou...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:20) names names. The Hebrew only tells us that "some of them" kept manna overnight against Moses's word. The Targum identifies the culprits: Bu...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:21) preserves a detail almost invisible in the Hebrew but rich in the Sages' imagination: when the sun grew hot, the uncollected manna did not ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:35) adds a detail that answers a question most readers do not think to ask: when exactly did the manna stop falling? The Targum says: And the c...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the Hebrew leaves implicit: why Moses's hands grew heavy. "The hands of Moses were heavy, because the conflict was prolonged till the morro...
It is written: “And set it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14), this is one of four righteous people to whom a portent was given; two sensed it and two did not sense it. A porten...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that the root cause of exile is a lack of faith. And the cure for exile is the Land of Israel. The connection is not sentimental. It is structural. ...
