2,302 related texts · 12 related myths · Page 5 of 48
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:8) records the death of Abraham in a phrase so compact it can be read in five seconds and pondered for a lifetime. "Abraham expired, and died ...
This is one of the Targum's most surprising explanations. Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:11) asks the question the Torah leaves hanging: why, in all the final chapters of his life,...
The second twin emerged differently. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:26) gives the detail plainly: "Afterward came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on the heel of Esa...
Take lentils, for example. Humble, unassuming… yet, in Jewish tradition, they're deeply tied to mourning and sorrow. Why lentils? The tradition tells us that when Cain killed Abel,...
Our story centers on Sarai (later Sarah) and Abram (later Abraham), a couple facing the heartbreaking reality of childlessness. Sarai, in a desperate attempt to fulfill the divine ...
Rabbi Akiva knew the feeling well! The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) tells us he was once teaching, and noticed his audience starting to nod off. So, being the quick-w...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Ishmael and Creation of Abraham. "Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Makhpela, in the field of Efron, son of Tzohar the Hittite, that is ...
A discussion about "messengers" (malakhim). Were they ordinary people, or something more? Some Rabbis suggest they were actual angels! It blurs the lines between the mundane and th...
There was an incident in which Rabbi Yehoshua was walking along the path.49This was a path through a field that was created by people traversing it. A certain person found him walk...
The Torah tells us that Isaac eventually married Rebecca. But did you know that, according to some traditions, they faced a long period of infertility? Twenty-two years, to be exac...
Chapter 46 tells us about a significant moment: the Israelites, after a period of time, gathered up all the bones of Jacob’s children, with one notable exception: Joseph. And where...
Book of Jasher turns to Jacob Before the Flood. In Jasher, Jacob lived in Egypt for seventeen years, reaching the ripe old age of 147. As his health began to fail, he summoned Jose...
It turns out, the story continues in some fascinating, and sometimes surprising, ways. In Ginzberg's retelling in, Legends of the Jews, Rebekah first saw Isaac returning from Beer-...
Esau was seething after Jacob received their father Isaac's blessing. He was so consumed by hatred, according to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, that Jacob had to esca...
I'm talking about Joseph, of course, and his brothers. We know the story: Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, rises to power in Egypt, and then, years later, fate br...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, by the way, is a beautiful and somewhat enigmatic work of Jewish literature from around the 8th century CE that retells and expands upon biblical narratives...
In (Genesis 48:7), as he prepares to bless his grandsons, Jacob breaks off to explain to Joseph something that has haunted the family for decades. "Rachel died by me suddenly in th...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai, a towering figure in Jewish mysticism, points to three individuals who experienced this incredible immediacy. He says there are three people who were answer...
It's a retelling and expansion of stories we find in Genesis, offering a slightly different perspective. Our focus? Chapter 24. It's a short, sharp account of Isaac and his struggl...
Book of Jubilees turns to Jacob and Laban Swear an Oath at Gilead. The Book of Jubilees (chapter 29, to be exact) gives us a little extra insight. This fascinating, often overlooke...
It’s a question as old as… well, as old as families themselves. And in the Book of Jubilees, we find a powerful little exchange between Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, that illumina...
After such a monumental event, life surely changed. According to Legends of the Jews, Abraham felt the weight of his years more acutely after Sarah's passing. The text suggests Abr...
As Joseph lay on his deathbed, he made his brethren swear a solemn oath. He didn't just ask it of them, but instructed them to have their sons swear it too: when God would finally ...
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. Ther...
It all starts with the story of Isaac, and a verse from (Genesis 26:12): "And Isaac sowed in that land." What did Isaac sow? Grain? Rabbi Eliezer, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, stops ...
The familiar story centers on the manna, the miraculous bread from heaven. But what about water? How did they quench their thirst in that desolate landscape? Well, according to Rab...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer turns to Isaac and the Philistines Battle Over Abraham's Wells. We find the story in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (Chapter 36), a fascinating text that retells and...
It's like peeling back layers of an onion, each layer revealing a new nuance, a deeper understanding. Our journey begins in Sifrei Devarim 195, a collection of legal interpretation...
The Hebrew Bible tells us God remembered Sarah and she bore a son. The ancient Aramaic translators wanted to know more. They added a detail the Torah left out: God performed a mira...
Joseph's brothers had carried their father's coffin up from Egypt to bury him in the Cave of Machpelah. At the mouth of the cave, Esau was waiting. "This grave is mine," Esau said....
Why, the rabbis ask, did Abraham only now, at the border of Egypt, realize that Sarah was beautiful? Had he never noticed before? One reading of (Genesis 12:11) goes like this. Abr...
The rabbis of the Talmud were connoisseurs of soil. They compared regions by fertility the way others compare wines. The best land in the world, they said, is Egypt, for it is writ...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 12:5) uses a strange phrase: the souls they had made in Haran. How does one make a soul? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan answers in a single word that opens a whole t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:14) delivers one of the boldest numeric readings in the Aramaic tradition. The Hebrew Bible says Abram armed three hundred and eighteen traine...
When God promised Abraham a great reward, Abraham's answer was not gratitude. It was an honest complaint. Gifts without children are not quite gifts. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Gen...
The Torah says Abraham took two of his young men. The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:3) names them: Eliezer, the faithful servant, and Ishmael, the firstborn son whom Abr...
The pattern returns. Pseudo-Jonathan knows it, and expects us to know it too. Abraham had done this twice, in Egypt and in Gerar, saying of Sarah, she is my sister, because he fear...
When the Philistines try to erase Abraham's memory, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what Isaac does. He digs. Again. "And Izhak digged again the wells of water which the servan...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not let us wonder how Rebekah heard. "The words of Esau her elder son, who thought in his heart to kill Jakob, were shown by the Holy Spirit to Rive...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:5) lists the peoples whose land is being promised: the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The Aramaic keeps the old Torah ...
It’s a wild story involving bitter waters, oaths, and divine judgment. But what happens if the woman is innocent? What's her reward for enduring such a trial? That’s what Bamidbar ...
Our focus is (Genesis 23:17-18), describing how Abraham acquired the field of Ephron, including the cave of Makhpela, as a burial place. "The field of Ephron that was in Makhpela t...
It’s a theme that echoes throughout Jewish tradition, doesn't it? And it makes you wonder: why that particular miracle? Well, one perspective comes to us from a fascinating text at...
Our question comes from (Genesis 16:4): "When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes." Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, becomes pregnant with Abraham's ch...
The question is: Why? (Genesis 17:17) tells us that after God tells Abraham (who was then still called Abram) that his wife Sarah (then Sarai) will bear him a son, he "fell on his ...
And the Lord remembered Sarah (Gen. 21:1). Scripture states elsewhere in reference to this verse: That confirmeth the word of His servant, and performeth the counsel of His messeng...
And Abraham was old, and well stricken in years (Gen. 24:1). Scripture states elsewhere in reference to this verse: A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband (Prov. 12:4). This ve...
And Moses was content to dwell (Exod. 2:21). The word content (vayo’el) is used with reference to an oath, as in the case of Saul: And he adjured (vayo’el) the people (I Sam. 14:24...
