2,086 related texts · Page 20 of 44
Jewish mysticism often uses the image of a river to symbolize exile, a time of hardship and spiritual searching. But within that very exile, within the darkest moments, lies the se...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Zohar, dives deep into this very idea, using the image of "husks" – kelipot (the shells of impurity) in Hebrew –...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Zohar, delves into just that kind of passionate exchange between the Divine and the Shekhinah, the feminine aspe...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Va'era with a question about the nature of prophecy. God tells Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jac...
"And God spoke to Moses" (Exodus 6:2). The Hebrew word for "spoke" (vayedaber) implies harshness, while "said" (vayomer) implies gentleness. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk uses this g...
The Torah speaks "to Moses and to Aaron" — in that order. Moses first, Aaron second. A natural reading would assume this reflects a hierarchy: Moses is the greater, Aaron the lesse...
Rabbi Nathan takes on a question that had puzzled scholars of the Torah for generations: what does the Hebrew phrase ben ha'arbayim actually mean? The term appears in the Passover ...
Rabbi Yoshiyah offered a creative reading of the Hebrew word "ufasachti" — "and I will pass over you" — from the Passover narrative. He said: do not read it as "ufasachti" but as "...
R. Yonathan says: "and I will skip over you." I will be compassionate to you, but not to the Egyptians. I might think that an Egyptian in a Jewish house would be rescued. It is, th...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus compiled in the 2nd century CE, traces another instance of the Bible's "as He spoke" formula — a device the rabbis use to link later p...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic commentary on Exodus, addresses a verse with massive implications for the Exodus narrative. Moses tells Israel in Deuteronomy: "And the Lord said to you...
(Ibid. 12:27) "Then you shall say that it is a Paschal sacrifice to the L–rd.": R. Yossi Haglili said: The Jews would have deserved to die in Egypt (if not for the merit of the Pas...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, pauses on a detail in the Exodus narrative that seems redundant: "And they asked of Egypt vessels of silver and vessels of gold and r...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, records a teaching from Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov about how the Israelites knew exactly what to ask from the Egyptians — and how the E...
And thus do you find, that whenever Israel is in bondage, the Shechinah is with them, viz. (Exodus 24:10) "And they saw the G��d of Israel, and under His feet, as the work of a sap...
The place where Israel camped before crossing the Red Sea bore a name loaded with meaning. The Mekhilta offers multiple interpretations of "Chiroth" — and each one tells a differen...
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel drew a startling comparison between two empires — Egypt after the Exodus and Rome in its prime — to illustrate how completely the departure of Israel had g...
As Israel stood at the edge of the sea, they looked back and saw something terrifying. "And, behold, Egypt coming after them" (Exodus 14:10). The Mekhilta notices a grammatical det...
The Mekhilta identifies three separate places in the Torah where God explicitly commanded Israel never to return to Egypt. Three warnings — not one, not two, but three — each in a ...
"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...
The Holy One Blessed be He heals all who enter the world, viz. (Exodus 15:26) "for I am the L–rd who heals you", (Jeremiah 17:14) "Heal me, O L–rd, and I will be healed. Save me, a...
As the walls of water began crashing down upon the Egyptian army, a debate erupted among the soldiers trapped in the seabed. The Torah records that "Egypt said: I shall flee from b...
He devoted his life to the judges, and they were called by his name, viz. (Devarim 16:18) "Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all of your gates." Now is justice ...
The Egyptians' greatest military asset became the instrument of their destruction. The Mekhilta points to a devastating symmetry in the Exodus narrative that reveals God's measure-...
"the L–rd is a man of war': What is the intent of this? Because He revealed Himself at the sea as a hero waging war—"The L–rd is a man of war"—and He revealed Himself at Sinai as a...
The Mekhilta offers a pointed reading of the phrase "The chariots of Pharaoh" from the Song of the Sea, connecting Pharaoh's destruction at the Red Sea directly to his earlier crim...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael presents a teaching that parallels and extends the previous one about divine wrath, now turning to the subject of divine warfare. The principle is the...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
The Mekhilta once again turns to verb tense to extract prophecy from the Song at the Sea. The verse does not say "worked wonders" — past tense, as though God's miracles were finish...
The Egyptians drowned at the Red Sea — but they also received burial. The Mekhilta asks the obvious question: in what merit were the Egyptians granted burial? They had enslaved Isr...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "All the inhabitants of Canaan melted ('namogu')": When the inhabitants of Canaan heard that the Holy One Blessed be He had said to Moses (Devarim 20:16-17) "But fr...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
Rabbi Yehudah ben Ilai makes a disturbing claim in the Mekhilta: idolatry crossed the Red Sea with Israel. The very nation that had just witnessed God's greatest miracle — the spli...
Rabbi Yitzchak posed a deceptively simple question about one of the most famous promises in the Torah. In (Exodus 15:26), God tells the Israelites that if they follow His commandme...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered a surprising claim about what life was actually like for the Israelites in Egypt. Contrary to what one might expect from a nation of slaves, Israel liv...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws a sweeping conclusion from the verse "and you will know that the L-rd took you out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 16:6). The teaching here is not...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael drew a sharp distinction between two foods God gave the Israelites in the wilderness, and the difference had everything to do with how they were reque...
Moses and Aaron delivered a pointed warning to the Israelites who kept complaining about their food in the wilderness. The manna had been given with a "radiant countenance" because...
Moses spoke three words that carried immense weight: "Eat it today" (Exodus 16:25). He said it not once but three times in the same verse. "Eat it today, for it is Sabbath today. T...
When God commanded that a jar of manna be preserved, the instruction was specific (Exodus 16:33): "Put therein a full omer of manna and place it before the Lord as a keeping for yo...
Moses responded to Israel's complaints with a question that reframed the entire conflict: "Why would you quarrel with me? Why would you try the Lord?" (Exodus 17:2). He was telling...
The Mekhilta identifies a remarkable pattern in the relationship between God and Moses: sometimes God "lowers" Himself while Moses "raises" himself, and other times the dynamic rev...
Israel looked at the staff of Moses and saw only devastation. It had brought ten plagues upon the Egyptians in Egypt — blood, frogs, lice, and all the rest. Then it brought ten mor...
The Torah describes a strange scene during the battle against Amalek: "When Moses lifted his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed" (Exodus 17:11)....
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...
The verse says Moses' hands were "steadfast" during the battle against Amalek (Exodus 17:12). The Mekhilta reads that single word as a double testimony — each of Moses' two hands t...
R. Elazar says: after she parted from him with a ma'amar (i.e., by word of mouth). For when the L–rd said to Moses: Go and take My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, viz...
