1,629 related texts · 12 related myths · Page 3 of 34
Bereshit Rabbah turns to The Rise and Fall of Kings in the Land of Edom. Rabbi Abahu, a prominent sage of the 3rd century, offers a powerful analogy. Imagine a prince locked in a l...
They found a surprisingly relevant metaphor in the Book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet. The verse says, "all the rivers go to the sea." Kohelet Rabbah, a Midrashic (rabbinic interpret...
Rabbi Simon, in Kohelet Rabbah, a commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes, makes a striking observation. He points out a curious pattern: when people attend joyous occasions, their ...
Jubilees, in its 40th chapter, paints a picture of Joseph that goes beyond the familiar story of the coat of many colors and the dreams. It tells us, "for he walked in uprightness,...
Sometimes, it's the little-known stories, the tucked-away details, that truly bring the past to life. to a snippet from the Book of Jasher, a text mentioned in the Bible itself (Jo...
A fascinating chapter from the Book of Jasher, a non-canonical Jewish text that elaborates on stories from the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, The chapter opens with the death of Saul,...
In Chapter 89, we find just such a song, bursting with praise and recounting God's powerful deliverance. "Then spoke Joshua this song," the text begins, "on the day that the Lord h...
The Book of Jasher, an ancient text referenced in the Bible itself (Joshua 10:13, (2 Samuel 1:1)8), offers some fascinating glimpses. The chapter opens by setting the stage: It's a...
It led to one of the most dramatic moments in the Joseph story. Pharaoh, plagued by these intense dreams, had already consulted the wise men of Egypt. But their interpretations jus...
Legends of the Jews turns to Joseph Tests His Brothers Over Benjamin's Freedom. Joseph, now a powerful figure in Egypt, is testing his brothers. He's been playing coy, hiding his t...
The Torah tells us that Moses gathered the elders and performed miracles to prove his divine appointment. But according to the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Rabbi Louis Ginzber...
The familiar version gives us the broad strokes: Pharaoh, Moses, plagues, freedom. But the details… oh, the details are where things get truly wild. The Torah recounts the ten plag...
It wasn't just random chaos. According to Jewish tradition, there was a profound, almost poetic, justice at play. The Torah, our sacred text, often draws parallels between differen...
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....
For the Israelites fleeing Egypt, this wasn't fiction – it was reality, or at least, that's how the legends tell it. The moment God saw His people struggling, caught between the pu...
Legends of the Jews turns to Edom Refuses Israel and Blocks the Desert Road. After all those years wandering in the desert, the Israelites, led by Moses, were finally approaching t...
The ancient Israelites did something similar with manna, that miraculous food from heaven. As the story goes, they sang a song not to the manna, but to the well that accompanied th...
The Israelites, fresh out of Egypt, needed to cross Sihon's land. Moses, ever the diplomat, sent a message. He promised they'd stick to the main road, the "king's highway," so no o...
The familiar version gives us Moses. The guy who led the Israelites out of Egypt, received the Torah on Mount Sinai… a pretty big deal. But even Moses, seasoned leader and prophet,...
Legends of the Jews turns to Kingdom of Og. Og. The name alone conjures images of a giant striding across the ancient landscape. And giant he was! We catch glimpses of him in the T...
The old stories certainly think so. Take this little snippet from Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, a treasure trove of rabbinic tales and folklore. It paints a picture of animal loy...
Baal HaSulam reads domem dekedusha, the holy inanimate level, as the first pressure placed on the soul's desire to receive. Domem dekedusha – literally, "the light of the holy inan...
In Mitpachat Sefarim, a collection of Jewish writings whose name literally means "wrapping of books," we find a raw, unflinching look at a generation seemingly gone astray. The aut...
Why the Zohar Calls the Synagogue an Esnoga is the question behind this passage from Mitpachat Sefarim. Hold on. Esnoga? Where did that come from? That’s the question that bothered...
"for there was no house where no one had died": R. Nathan said: Now were there not houses without first-born?, (The resolution:) If one lost a first-born, he would make an image of...
An analogy: A dove, fleeing a hawk, enters a king's palace, whereupon the king opens the eastern window for her, whence she escapes. The hawk, following, the king closes all the wi...
An analogy: A king's son goes abroad, he goes after him and attends upon him. He goes to a different city, he goes after him and attends upon him. Thus with Israel. When they went ...
At which he said to the Holy One Blessed be He: Can it be that Your ways are like those of flesh and blood? The apitoropos makes a decree and the kalidikos abrogates it; the kalidi...
Before Moses died, God took him to the summit of Mount Nebo and showed him the entirety of the Promised Land, every region, every valley, every corner of the territory his people w...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines God's words to Moses in the days before the revelation at Sinai: "Behold, I shall come to you in the thickness of the cloud" (Exodus 19:9). T...
When Noah was loading up the ark, Og made a deal. He swore to Noah and his sons that if they’d let him come along, he’d be their servant forever. Space on the ark was tight, to say...
Why we don't have all the answers, especially when it comes to the big questions like, "What's the ultimate reward for doing good?" Midrash Tehillim 9, a beautiful exploration with...
It’s not random. There's a beautiful and intricate choreography to our relationship with the Divine. Consider the dedication of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. The Book of Numbers tel...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Moses Rebukes Israel with Geographic Code Words. "Across the Jordan": this teaches us, the text says, that Moses is rebuking the people for their actions on...
Take the story of Og, King of Bashan. We find him mentioned in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy). Now, Og wasn't just any king; he was a giant, a remnant of the Rephaim, a race of ...
Sometimes, it's not as straightforward as it first appears. Take the classic example of basar b'chalav, meat and milk – a cornerstone of kashrut (dietary laws). You might assume it...
The Book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, dives right into this question. It's in chapter 13, verse 2, where it says, "If there arise in your midst a prophet..." But it doesn’t just stop t...
Exodus chapter 6 is mostly genealogy, the kind of passage readers skim. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a minefield of hidden revelations. The chapter opens with God revealing th...
The Hebrew Bible records Moses's great farewell poem, the Song of Ha'azinu (Deuteronomy 32), a sweeping poetic indictment of Israel's future unfaithfulness. Targum Onkelos translat...
Abraham stepped out of the cave where he had been hidden as an infant, and for the first time saw the world above ground. He looked up and saw the sun climbing, enormous and warm, ...
Rabbi Janai and Rabbi Johanan sat watching two men leave the study house. They knew something about these men that the men did not know about themselves. Two astrologers had predic...
A man named Yochanan sat at the bedside of his dying father. The father made one strange request. "When I am gone, go to the marketplace on a day you choose, and whatever is the fi...
The halachah is clear: a man must not leave the synagogue before the chazzan finishes the Amidah, and must not pass a synagogue without entering it to pray. Gaster's Exempla (No. 3...
A man named Yochanan once kept a pet frog. The frog, according to the Rabbis, was not a frog at all. It was a child of Lilith, the demon of night. The creature taught Yochanan. Fir...
The first plague had fallen, but Egypt's astrologers refused to concede. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:22) gives a detail most translations flatten: So also did the astrologe...
The second plague is announced with an almost comic precision. Frogs will not merely swarm; they will specify. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 7:28) lists the destinations: into ...
Moses's promise is exact and generous. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:7): The frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy house, and from thy servants, and from thy people; and...
Every earlier plague, Pharaoh's court magicians had something to say. They turned their rods to serpents. They conjured frogs. They strained against lice and failed. But when the s...
