2,086 related texts · Page 8 of 44
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Sheni Ketuvim In the beginning God created etc. - To declare the might of the acts of creation to creatures, and to make it known to them...
"The righteous will give thanks to Your name; the upright will dwell in Your presence" (Psalm 140:14). The rabbis noticed something beautiful in this promise — God does not judge I...
David lifts his eyes to the mountains and prays — "A song of ascents" — and God answers him through a text he might not have expected: Moses's blessing of Judah. "And this is the b...
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...
“I remember my song in the night; I meditate with my heart, and my spirit searches” (Psalms 77:7). Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon and Rabbi Aivu.58The text of the midrash (rabbinic i...
“In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Aḥashverosh, he had cast a pur, that is, the lot, before Haman for each day and for each month, to the tw...
“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...
Rabbi Yehudah argues that the Torah's command to "eliminate leaven from your houses" means one specific thing: you must burn it. Not scatter it, not crumble it into the wind, not t...
The Book of Jubilees, also sometimes called Lesser Genesis, is considered apocryphal by many Jews and Protestants, but canonical in Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Christianity. Ap...
But this isn't just about the physical objects; it's about the flow of divine energy they represent. The text speaks of YESSOD d’ABBA, a foundational aspect of the divine masculine...
We're talking about the kind of secrets that unlock the very fabric of creation. Well, according to the Kabbalah, some of them reside right there on the forehead... and in the eyes...
Jewish mysticism, especially the Zohar, wrestles with this very feeling. And in Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 49, we find a particularly beautiful and intricate image of how th...
Specifically, the shin – the Hebrew letter ש – embossed on the head tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer). It’s not just decoration. It’s a doorway to something profou...
Jewish mysticism is full of these moments, these cosmic turning points. to one found in the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah. It speaks of time, specif...
to a passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 91, a section that unpacks the different ways we encounter and understand the divine presence, represented here as a feminine fo...
Rabbi Yishmael preserved a practical but fascinating rule about how the original Passover sacrifice worked in Egypt. The Paschal lamb was not a solo affair — families and neighbors...
The night of the tenth plague was unlike anything Egypt had ever witnessed. Every firstborn in the land — from the heir of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the cap...
The Torah's prohibition against possessing chametz during Passover seems absolute. But the rabbis of the Mekhilta identified important exceptions based on two principles: domain an...
The Torah commands placing tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand." But where exactly on the hand? The Hebrew word yad can mean the entire arm from shou...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching by Rabbi Yitzchak about the precise placement of tefillin, the leather boxes containing Torah passages that Jewish men bind to thei...
The Torah says to place tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand" — but which hand? The Mekhilta ruled that "hand," when used without further qualificatio...
Rabbi Yehudah offered a distinctive argument for the placement of the head tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer), drawing an unexpected connection between the laws of ...
It seems like a simple question, but sometimes the deepest meanings lie hidden within the most familiar phrases. Take, for instance, the commandment to bind words "between your eye...
The Torah's rule against cross-dressing in (Deuteronomy 22:5) is brief and absolute. Targum Jonathan rewrites it entirely, replacing the general prohibition with something specific...
We all know the story of the plagues visited upon Egypt. Blood, frogs, locusts… a greatest hits album of divine retribution. But what about the behind-the-scenes details? What abou...
It's not just about a crime; it's about the very introduction of wickedness into the world. The stakes were high from the very beginning. Our sages tell us that there were ten gene...
Plagues, parting of the Red Sea, freedom! But the details…they’re wild. Imagine the scene: the Egyptians, fresh from the devastation of the tenth plague, practically shoving the Is...
Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, presents a fascinating, almost unsettling, answer. when the time for redemption drew near, fulfilling the promise to Abraham, there was a problem....
It wasn't just about packing bags and sneaking away in the night. It was a direct confrontation with the gods of Egypt. For generations, they had lived under the yoke of the Pharao...
We read about the plagues, the drama, the escape... but what about the quieter moments? What about the conversations that might have happened just before the dawn broke and freedom...
Really trapped. Centuries of slavery, your identity almost erased. Then, a glimmer of hope appears: MOSES. But even after plagues and miracles, freedom seems just out of reach. Wha...
But instead of beelining straight for the Promised Land, they wandered in the desert for what felt like forever. Why? Well, it turns out there's more to it than just getting lost. ...
You've got the Red Sea in front of you, Pharaoh's army closing in behind, and the unforgiving desert on either side. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Desperate doesn’t even begi...
And it involves… a second chance Passover! Imagine this: The Israelites are in the desert, fresh out of Egypt. God is laying down the law, literally. Among the instructions is the ...
The Israelites knew that feeling intimately after the incident with the spies. God, though He relented from completely wiping them out, wasn't exactly thrilled. And that distance m...
It might sound sacrilegious, but the great Moses, our teacher, apparently did. And the conversation, as recorded in Legends of the Jews, is fascinating. According to Ginzberg's ret...
It's not just about being punctual. Sometimes, it's about making a statement, about proving a point. And in Jewish tradition, the idea of doing things in broad daylight, for all to...
Sometimes, it's not about grand pronouncements or earth-shattering feats from the get-go. Sometimes, it starts with simply being a good son. Take Gideon, for example. Gideon, the j...
Sometimes, the observations are...well, let's just say they offer a unique perspective. Imagine someone, unfamiliar with Jewish practice, trying to describe what they see. It might...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a cornerstone of Kabbalistic literature, speaks to just such a feeling. It delves into the secrets hidden within the Torah, offering interpre...
The Torah lists the patriarchs in a specific order: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In (Exodus 3:6), God introduces Himself to Moses at the burning bush as "the God of your father, the ...
R. Yehudah b. Betheira says: It is written (Exodus 6:9) "And they would not hearken to Moses (as to G–d's delivering them), for shortness of spirit, etc." Now is there anyone who i...
Moses told the Israelites to take a lamb for the Passover offering, and they were terrified. The Mekhilta preserves their fearful protest: "Will we slaughter the abomination of Egy...
The Torah's description of the tenth plague contains a phrase that seems redundant but actually expands the scope of the devastation far beyond Egypt's borders: "and I smote every ...
On the night of the Exodus, God did not just strike the firstborn of Egypt. He also executed judgment on the gods of Egypt. And according to the Mekhilta, those judgments were not ...
"and the L–rd will skip over the blood": Now does this not follow a fortiori, viz.: If of the blood (on the door) of the Pesach (Passover) of Egypt, the less "formidable," which ob...
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 Passove...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, probes the geographic scope of the tenth plague with meticulous care. The verse states: "And the Lord smote every firstborn in the la...
