2,435 related texts · 25 related myths · Page 4 of 51
(Exodus 12:2) records God's instruction to Moses: "This month shall be to you the beginning of months." It is the very first commandment given to Israel as a nation, even before th...
(Exodus 12:7) "And they shall take from the blood": I might think either by hand or by vessel; it is, therefore, written (Ibid. 22) "And you shall dip it in the blood which is in t...
(Exodus 12:37) "And the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth": From Ramses to Succoth was a distance of forty parasangs, and the voice of Moses traveled (the distanc...
God spoke to Moses with a command that sounds absolute: "Sanctify unto Me every first-born" (Exodus 13:1-2). Every first-born, of humans, of animals, of everything that opens the w...
Moses commanded the people: "Remember this day when you went out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:3). The Mekhilta notices that this verse, taken alone, refers to the daytime, "this day." The ...
(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....
In the past, Pharaoh's servants said to him (Exodus 10:7) "How long will this one be a stumbling block to us?" and now (Ibid. 14:5) "What is this that we did in sending Israel away...
The Song at the Sea praises God not only for His power but for His patience. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael highlights a detail that the Israelites themselves recognized as they san...
Variantly: "on the fifteenth day of the second month": Why is the day mentioned? To know on which day the manna descended for Israel. Israel ate from the wafer that they took out o...
The familiar version gives us the highlights – the Nile turning to blood, swarms of locusts, darkness… But the details, the why and how, are often richer and stranger than we remem...
That feeling…that’s almost the heart of the story of Hallelujah. What is Hallelujah, really? It's more than just a word; it's an expression, a moment in time. Midrash Tehillim, in ...
In the Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, Rabbi Yehudah gives us a fascinating mnemonic device for remembering the ten...
Some of the geographic details in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are staggering. On (Exodus 12:31), the Targum pauses to describe the map. The border of Mizraim extended four hundred phars...
The Torah isn't always explicit about timing, and sometimes, a seemingly simple phrase can unlock a whole world of debate. Take (Exodus 7:25): "Seven days were completed, after the...
The familiar reading treats the verse in (Exodus 12:30), "As there was no house in which there was no one dead," and maybe we don't fully grasp its implications. But the ancient ra...
The fifth heaven of Sefer HaRazim marks a transition from the functional heavens below, weather, punishment, light, and the sun, to the more abstract and terrifying realms above. H...
The death of Moses is the most devastating scene in the Torah. And the Talmud in Sotah 13b expands it into something almost unbearable. Moses pleaded with God not to let him die. H...
A Kuthean, a Samaritan, once came to Rabbi Meir with an accusation against the patriarch Jacob. It is preserved as exemplum No. 32 in Moses Gaster's 1924 collection. "Your ancestor...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:15) turns Abram's night raid into a double operation with a prophetic shadow. The Aramaic says Abram divided his forces in the night: a part w...
When Pharaoh asks who will be going to worship, Moses answers without hesitation. "With our children and with our old men will we go; with our sons and with our daughters we will g...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 10:23) reveals a secret buried in the ninth plague that the plain Torah only hints at. "No man saw his brother, and none arose from his place ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 11:5) announces the tenth plague in language that is almost merciless in its precision. "Every firstborn in the land of Mizraim shall die: fro...
The most dangerous sentence in the Passover story is the one where Israel was told to tie a lamb to a post and wait. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:6) turns those four days o...
The difference between the plain Hebrew and the Aramaic of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:23) is the insertion of the Memra, the Word of the Lord. In the Hebrew, God passes o...
Of all the expansions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, few are as beautiful as the Four Nights passage on (Exodus 12:42). The Aramaic says there are four nights written in the Book of Me...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:16) closes the tefillin section with a repetition that is not really a repetition. Once again the text says the Exodus must be inscribed an...
Here is a question only R. Isaac could ask without blushing. If the Torah is primarily a book of commandments, why does it open with (Genesis 1:1), a narrative about cosmic creatio...
(Ibid. 15) "Only on the first day you shall eliminate leaven from your houses": before the eve of the festival. You say this, but perhaps (the meaning is) on the day of the festiva...
Would you say that? There is a difference (between neveilah, [from which benefit may be derived] and chametz, [from which benefit may not be derived,], so that the resultant equati...
The Torah warns that whoever eats chametz during Passover will have their soul "cut off from Israel." The punishment is kareth, spiritual excision from the community. But the Mekhi...
I might think that just as in the armpiece there is one parchment, so, should there be in the headpiece. And this would follow, viz. Since the Torah prescribes tefillin (leather ph...
How often must a person inspect their tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) to make sure the scrolls inside are still intact? The Mekhilta derives the answer through a...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai expanded the promise of Sabbath observance far beyond three festivals. Where Rabbi Yehoshua linked Shabbat (the Sabbath) to Pesach (Passover), Shavuot, and Suc...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Mount Sinai and Joseph of Atzereth. Why mention each of these individually? Well, Sifrei Devarim suggests it’s because they aren’t mutually derivable. Each ...
God tells Moses that Pharaoh will not listen, but that redemption will come anyway, by force. The Hebrew says God will lay His hand upon Egypt (Exodus 7:4). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ...
Book of Jubilees turns to The Sacred Obligation of Passover. In Jubilees 49, we read about the absolute, non-negotiable importance of observing Passover at its precise, divinely ap...
R. Eliezer says: Sheep for the Pesach (Passover) and cattle for the chagigah. You say this, but perhaps both are for the Pesach? And how would I understand "an unblemished lamb, et...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, offers a remarkable insight into the nature of obedience. The Torah says of the Israelites: "and they did", referring to the Passover...
The Torah records that the Israelites left Egypt "in the first month" (Numbers 33:3). This establishes a clear date for the Exodus, the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewis...
Why the Torah Repeats the Command for Passover Offerings is the question behind this passage from Sifrei Bamidbar. Sifrei Bamidbar offers a few intriguing answers. The first is abo...
In the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar), chapter 9, verses 9 and 10, we read: "And the L-rd spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: A man if he be unclean by a d...
Why priests were priests, Levites were Levites, and the firstborn. well, what was the deal with the firstborn? Our story begins in Bamidbar Rabbah 6, a section of the great Midrash...
Seems straightforward. But a curious question arises, a question that leads us into a fascinating rabbinic debate found in Bereshit Rabbah 70. The scene opens with an idolater tryi...
It's rarely just repetition. Often, it's about adding layers of meaning, offering a deeper appreciation for what came before. Take the very beginning of the Book of Exodus. We’re i...
"Moses extended his hand toward the heavens, and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days. They did not see one another, and no one rose from his place...
The Shemot Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus, offers a breathtakingly intimate perspective on that pivotal moment. Specifically, Shemot...
Shemot Rabbah turns to How God Relates to Israel Around the Exodus. The passage starts with the verse, "This month shall be for you" (Exodus 12:2), which refers to the month of Nis...
The verse But the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Shemot Rabbah 16, doesn't just read it at face value. It asks: why the elders? Why were they the ones cal...
