2,302 related texts · 12 related myths · Page 2 of 48
A reader can imagine them simply receiving divine gifts, but the reality, as often told in our tradition, is far more nuanced. Take Abraham, for instance, and his quest to acquire ...
Drawing on various Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) sources, the simmering tensions between the descendants of Jacob and Esau erupted once more. Remember the little scu...
The Mekhilta teaches that there are people in the Torah whose very names were diminished, literally shrunk, because of their actions. The prime example is Efron the Hittite, the ma...
The Midrash preserves a legend that the Tanakh only whispers at. When Isaac died, his two sons came to bury him. "His sons Esau and Jacob buried him" (Genesis 35:29), the written T...
The request is precise. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:9), Abraham names exactly what he wants: his double cave which is built in the side of his field, for the full pric...
When the blessings were finished, Jacob turned to the practical. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records his request with the gravity of a last will. "I am to be gathered to my people; bury...
The story of Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, gives us a powerful glimpse. In (Genesis 24:12), we find Eliezer on a crucial mission: to find a wife for Isaac. He prays, "Lord, God of my...
What made Eli the priest live so long? The midrash gives a simple answer: Torah study. "Fortunate is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of ...
Zechariah saw a horseman in a vision of the night (Zechariah 1:8). The rabbis identified this figure as the prince of Edom, the heavenly guardian angel of the nation that had ruled...
(Job 5:19) promises: "From six woes He shall save you, and in the seventh, evil shall not reach you." The midrash asks which six woes. And Solomon in Proverbs provides the list: "S...
"In all their affliction, He was not afflicted" (Isaiah 63:9). The midrash reads this as conditional: if Israel does the will of God in their troubles, then He is afflicted with th...
In the days when Alexander the Great marched through Asia, the Ishmaelites came before him with a lawsuit. They claimed Canaan. They were descended from Abraham, they argued; the I...
The command is unambiguous. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:3), Abraham makes Eliezer swear by the Word of the Lord God, whose habitation is in heaven on high, the God who...
Where was Isaac during all this? The Torah says he was "coming from Beer-lahai-roi." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:62) tells us something far more specific. He was coming f...
The Torah in (Genesis 25:17) gives us a short obituary for Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years, and then he "expired and was gathered to his people." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
Esau was watching. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:6) lingers on what he noticed: not only that Isaac blessed Jacob, but that Isaac sent Jacob to Padan Aram with a very s...
Jacob names the burial site with the precision of a deed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the legal language. "In the cave that is in the Double Field over against Mamre in the la...
Sometimes, the most fascinating details are tucked away in texts just outside the mainstream, like the Book of Jubilees. Abraham is familiar. But do we really know him? The passage...
The familiar version gives us Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Esau. But there's so much more to these stories! It’s not part of the Hebrew Bible canon, but it offer...
Legends of the Jews turns to Ephron Charged Abraham Four Hundred Silver Shekels. So, Sarah has passed, and Abraham needs a burial place. He approaches the Children of Heth, and the...
It wasn’t a small, quiet affair. Oh no. This was a grand event, a spectacle of mourning and respect. In Legends of the Jews, everyone who was anyone showed up. Shem and his son Ebe...
It happens to the best of us, and as we’ll see, it certainly happened to Laban in the story of Rebekah and Eliezer. Rebekah, you'll recall, had just met Eliezer, Abraham's trusted ...
Legends of the Jews turns to Sarah — Rebecca and the Patriarchs. The weight of expectation! After all, she wasn’t just moving into any tent. She was moving into the tent of Sarah, ...
Rebekah, already stressed about the tension between her sons Jacob and Esau, took matters into her own hands. She went to Isaac, her husband, and basically said, in a flood of tear...
Sometimes, the most profound truths are veiled in the everyday. Take the story of Rebecca at the well, in Genesis 24. She wasn't just offering water; she was embodying something mu...
The Cave of Machpelah in Hebron is one of those places, a site revered for millennia. But the story of how it became so sacred is even more fascinating than you might imagine. It a...
Once the camels had finished drinking, all ten of them, every last swallow, the servant reached into his pack and took out jewelry. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:22) refuse...
One verse, a whole liturgy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:63) translates the Hebrew word la-suach, which can mean "to meditate" or "to wander", as something specific: Isaac...
That feeling resonates deep within a fascinating text called the Book of Jubilees. The Book of Jubilees, also known as Lesser Genesis, was widely read during the Second Temple peri...
After Sarah's death, Abraham took another wife named Keturah, said to be from the land of Canaan. And she bore him six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuach. Tha...
Sometimes, the most incredible stories come from those moments. Like this one from Hebron, about how the patriarch Abraham himself stepped in to aid his descendants. Hebron – Ḥevro...
Jewish tradition explores that very edge of human emotion in the story of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, after the near-sacrifice of Isaac. It’s a tale found in Ginzberg's Legends of the J...
The stories we tell about the resting places of the righteous are so much more than just historical markers. They're portals into understanding our values, our fears, and our deepe...
It all starts when Rachel, upon hearing that Jacob, her cousin, has arrived, races home to tell her father, Laban. Sadly, the Torah tells us that Rachel’s mother had already passed...
Legends of the Jews turns to Rebekah Was Buried Secretly Because Only Esau Was Nearby. It wasn’t long after that Rebekah herself passed away. But unlike Deborah, her death wasn't m...
The Torah records a remarkable exchange in (Genesis 10:15): "And Canaan begot Tziddon, his first-born, and Cheth." Generations later, the sons of Cheth, the Hittites, encountered A...
The patriarch Abraham certainly did. The story begins with Sarah, Abraham's wife, making a demand. She tells Abraham to write a get, a bill of divorce, and send away his handmaid H...
A wife does not greet her husband at the door. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:2), the Aramaic names what Abraham finds when he comes down from the mountain: Abraham came ...
The mother and brother gather around Rivekah on the morning she is to leave, and they speak a blessing that the Jewish people have been whispering over their daughters ever since. ...
This is the prophecy Rebekah receives in the study house of Shem, and it reframes every story that follows. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:23) preserves the oracle with one ...
The Torah, as it often does, gives us clues, and this time it’s wrapped up in the story of Abraham burying his beloved Sarah. In (Genesis 23:19), we read, “Then, Abraham buried Sar...
Like a well, for instance. It's more than just a source of water; it’s often a meeting place, a place of destiny. Our sages point this out in Shemot Rabbah, noting how the well is ...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that the Torah is not just a text to study. It is a key that unlocks every prayer and opens every closed door. When a person engages deeply with Tor...
Abraham called himself a stranger. (Genesis 23:4): "A stranger and a sojourner am I with you." David called himself a stranger. (Psalms 119:19): "I am a stranger in the land." And ...
Take the tale of Jacob and Esau, for instance. The familiar version gives us the basic outline: Jacob, aided by his mother Rebecca, deceives his blind father Isaac to steal the ble...
The deal closes with a detail that tells you this verse was written by someone who knew markets. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:16), the Aramaic paraphrase describes the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns (Genesis 24:31) into a confession. Laban greets the servant with the warmest possible words, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord". And then lets slip a ...
The servant keeps circling this moment. He circles it because he cannot get over it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:45) has him tell Laban's household: "I had not yet finish...
