2,435 related texts · 25 related myths · Page 49 of 51
The morning after the Levites had gone through the camp with swords, Moses gathered the people for a speech that was not a speech. It was a confession, delivered to the ones who ha...
The most extraordinary sentence in Moses' Sinai prayer is not a petition. It is an offer. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, renders it this way. "If You ...
The Lord's answer to Moses after the calf contains a quiet threat wrapped in a promise. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, renders the divine response thi...
The people took off the ornaments they had received at Sinai. What happened to them? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, answers with a detail the plain te...
After the calf, Moses pitched his personal tent far from the people. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives us the exact distance and what happened ther...
Not everyone watched Moses walk to the tabernacle with reverence. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, catches a detail the plain text leaves hidden. "When ...
When Moses entered the tabernacle of instruction, the heavens did not stay silent. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives us the scene in its fullness. ...
The Torah says the Lord spoke with Moses "face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, refuses to let the metaphor m...
Moses was never shy with God. After the calf, he pressed a question that most prophets would not have dared to speak. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, r...
Moses' next request is the oldest and most painful question in religious life. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, renders it with full theological weight....
Moses pressed further. How will it be known, he asked, that Israel has truly found favor before God? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives his answer a...
After Moses' long intercession, God answered with a short sentence that closed the negotiation. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, renders it with the for...
When Moses asked to see God's glory, the answer reshaped the possibility of what a human being can experience of the Divine. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the T...
When the glory of God was about to pass, Moses needed protection. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, describes the shielding with mystical precision. "It ...
The morning after receiving the command, Moses did not delay. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives us the pre-dawn discipline of the prophet. "He hewe...
When Moses reached the summit with the new tablets, the meeting was unlike the first Sinai revelation. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, describes what h...
On the second ascent of Sinai, God proclaimed His own Name to Moses in a formula that Jews have recited in every generation since. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of...
After hearing the Thirteen Attributes, Moses pressed his petition one more time. The words he spoke contain the deepest prayer of Jewish survival. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Arama...
God's answer to Moses contains one of the most mysterious promises in the entire Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, reveals the secret hidden in th...
There is a moment on Sinai when God tells Moses to write. Not to remember, not to transmit orally, not to carve into stone alone. But to write. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 34...
The number forty runs through the Torah like a drumbeat. Forty days of flood in Noah's time. Forty years in the wilderness. And here, in (Exodus 34:28) as preserved by Targum Pseud...
After forty days on Sinai, Moses came down with the two tablets of testimony in his hand, and something had happened to his face. The Torah's Hebrew says karan, literally, his face...
Moses wore a veil over his face after Sinai, because the shining of his skin frightened the people (Exodus 34:30). But there was one moment he always took it off. Targum Pseudo-Jon...
After every encounter in the Tent of Meeting, Moses came out with his face alight. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 34:35) says plainly: the sons of Israel saw the countenance of ...
It is a small verse, easy to read past, but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:1) marks a turning point. Moses gathers all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and says to the...
Where did the onyx stones for the high priest's ephod come from? The Torah does not say. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:27) tells one of the strangest mineral-supply stor...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:28) continues the miraculous supply chain it began in the previous verse. The clouds of heaven returned, and went to the garden of Eden, and to...
The Tabernacle project had a project manager, and his name was Bezalel. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 36:2) describes the moment Moses formally assembled the team: Mosheh calle...
There is only one fundraising story in all of Jewish history where the problem was too much money. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 36:6) describes it: Mosheh commanded, and they ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:33) does something the plain Hebrew text does not. It tells us where, exactly, the finished tabernacle was brought. Not to a random tent. Not t...
When every piece of the sanctuary had been assembled and inspected, Moshe surveyed the whole and saw that the people had done exactly what the God of Israel had commanded. Then he ...
Most retellings of the golden calf stop at the moment Moses hurled the tablets to the ground and shattered them at the base of Sinai. But a remarkable tradition preserved in Targum...
There is a quiet moment in the construction of the Tabernacle that the text almost hurries past. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:21) captures it: Moses brought the ark into th...
The altar of burnt offering was the first thing anyone saw on approaching the Tabernacle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:29) places it exactly there, at the gate, before the ...
Exodus 40 ends with a single line of deep significance. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders (Exodus 40:33) simply: Moses reared up the court around the tabernacle and the altar, set the...
The greatest prophet in the Torah, the man who spoke with God "face to face" (Exodus 33:11), the builder of the sanctuary itself. And he could not walk inside. Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
A single grammatical detail in (Exodus 19:19) triggered centuries of rabbinic reflection. The verse reads: "Moses spoke, and God answered him out loud." Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ber...
The Torah has a default order. Moses before Aaron. Joshua before Caleb. Father before mother. Heaven before earth. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 14:1 collects the quiet exceptio...
Shemot Rabbah turns to God's Existence. It gets even more interesting when we consider the world around us. According to tradition, everything God created, He created as a pair. He...
Shemot Rabbah turns to The Warrior God. Think about the Exodus story. It’s not just a tale of liberation; it's a cosmic showdown. Remember the moment when the Egyptian magicians ha...
The Torah gives us a glimpse into such an experience with the story of the Ohel Mo'ed, the Tent of Meeting. The Book of Exodus describes how Moses would set up this tent "outside t...
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It's a statement of immense power, a foundation upon which an entire worldview is built. But what does it really mean? to t...
Shemot Rabbah turns to The Light Of The Torah. Think about the very beginning. "Let there be light," God said in (Genesis 1:3). But what was that light? Some say it wasn't just any...
The great Moses himself had such an experience. As we read in (Exodus 4:24), on the road one night, Adonai, God, encountered Moses and sought to kill him. Why would God, who had ju...
Serah, daughter of Asher, one of Jacob's sons. We find her name nestled in the list of those who went down to Egypt with Jacob to escape the famine. You can find it in (Genesis 46:...
Shemot Rabbah turns to The Waters Of The Red Sea Refuse To Part. In some fascinating midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) traditions, they did. Imagine Moses, staff raised ...
What happens to the abandoned? What happens to the children left to the elements, victims of cruelty and fear? Sometimes, stories offer us the most profound answers. Think about th...
What would you ask for? The tradition says as his time drew near, Moses made one final, powerful request of God. It wasn't for more life, or for comfort, or even for himself at all...
