4,564 related texts · 28 related myths · Page 2 of 96
Tractate Bava Batra preserves a strange debate about classroom size that turns, without warning, into a story of life and death. The rabbis were arguing about elementary education....
This single verse holds two of the most important laws in Jewish life. And the Targum layers them tightly together. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:19) says: The first ...
That makes you think, "Wait, what's really going on here?" to one of those tricky bits from Sifrei Devarim 249. It's a fascinating little puzzle concerning mamzerim and some ancien...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Yitbarach (May He Be Blessed) Blessed be the name of the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, who lives and endures forever and eve...
The Messiah, say the rabbis, will be greater than all the patriarchs, greater than Abraham, greater than Isaac, greater than Moses. This is the reading Aggadat Bereshit makes of Is...
“Pay them retribution, Lord, according to their handiwork” (Lamentations 3:64).“Pay them retribution” – Jeremiah said: “Pay them retribution.” Asaf said: “Pay our neighbors retribu...
“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:66).“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them” – Jeremiah said: “May you pur...
There exists a soul in every generation through whom Torah insights are revealed to the world. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov describes this soul as one burdened with suffering: "Bread w...
Where do dreams come from? The Talmud in Berakhot 55a offers a surprisingly psychological answer: from the dreamer's own mind. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani taught in the name of Rabbi ...
At the end of days, the prophet Malachi says, you will be able to tell the righteous from the wicked at a glance: "You shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked...
The rabbis taught that Jerusalem was not like other cities. Ten laws applied to her alone, each one a small clue to her strange status. A mortgaged house there was never permanentl...
This is one of the most extraordinary passages in the entire Targum. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:13) takes a single Hebrew word, ha-palit, the fugitive who brought news t...
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,...
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...
(Genesis 19:37), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "And the elder brought forth a son, and she called his name Moab, because from her father she had conceived. He is the father of the Moa...
Og did not fit inside the ark. That is the whole problem. The world was drowning, the animals were lining up before Noah, and the giant who would later become king of Bashan stood ...
The ancient Moabites knew that feeling all too well. See, a little backstory is needed. Remember Sihon and Og? Those formidable Amorite kings? Well, they were expansionists. They'd...
How Confession Turns Harsh Judgment Into Mercy is the question behind this passage from Likutey Moharan (Rabbi Nachman). Through the Torah of lovingkindness, which the Talmud defin...
The Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt because of the righteous women. According to Sotah 11b, Rav Avira taught that while the men had given up hope under Pharaoh's slavery, th...
Rachel had watched her sister enter the wedding canopy and had not envied her, not then. But when the children came, one after another from Leah's womb, Rachel's patience broke. "A...
Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau (Genesis 32:4). The Hebrew word is malachim, messengers, angels. The midrash says this literally: Jacob sent actual angels. He had t...
“How does the greatly crowded city sit alone? She has become like a widow. Great among the nations, a princess among the states: She has become a vassal” (Lamentations 1:1).“How [e...
There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of the baker, who was taken captive with her seven sons. The emperor took them and placed them behind seven partitions. He brought t...
“He severed in his enflamed wrath all the horn of Israel; He retracted His right hand from before the enemy. He burned in Jacob like flaming fire, consuming all around” (Lamentatio...
A tradition delivered at Sinai remembers the day Og, king of Bashan, nearly crushed the camp of Israel under a single stone. Og stood above the valley and measured the camp with hi...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses died "by the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Ancient tradition interprets this as death by a divine kiss, the gentlest possible departure from life. T...
Being Moses, the man who led the Israelites out of slavery, parted the Red Sea, and received the Torah (the Law) at Mount Sinai. He’s literally spoken to God face-to-face! So, when...
A man who had mastered Scripture, studied the Mishnah, and served many scholars dropped dead in the middle of his life. His widow seized his tefillin (leather phylacteries worn dur...
The opening verse of Deuteronomy lists a string of place names, "in the wilderness, in the Arabah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zaha...
Bar Haddaya, the dream interpreter who gave favorable readings to paying clients and devastating ones to non-payers, eventually paid for his corruption with his life. Berakhot 56b ...
After Vespasian became emperor, his son Titus completed the destruction of Jerusalem. According to Gittin 56b, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai's famous encounter with Vespasian included ...
The parable of the blind man and the lame man in the orchard, told by Antoninus to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in Sanhedrin 91b, establishes one of the Talmud's most important doctrines: b...
Rabbi Simlai made one of the most ambitious claims in the entire Talmud. He said: 613 commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, 365 prohibitions corresponding to the days of the s...
The Hebrew Bible calls Moses "the man of God" (Deuteronomy 33:1). Targum Onkelos adds one word: "the prophet of God." Moses is not merely a man who belongs to God. He is a prophet,...
The Hebrew Bible makes one of its most radical claims in (Deuteronomy 30:12-14): "It is not in heaven. nor is it overseas. for the matter is extremely close to you, in your mouth a...
It is written (Jeremiah 50:33) "Thus said the LORD of Hosts: The people of Israel are oppressed, And so too the people of Judah etc." and it is written (ibid 34) "Their Redeemer is...
Twenty generations passed between Adam and Abraham without old age being mentioned once. Not because people didn't age. But because no one had earned the particular beauty of visib...
Rabbi Akiva had a habit, whenever he taught, of binding the body to the soul. "If we who study Torah suffer," he would say, "how much more would we suffer if we neglected it?" He h...
An apostate once led the king into a synagogue at precisely the hour when the Torah reader was chanting the verse from Deuteronomy: "How can one pursue a thousand, and two put ten ...
Devarim Rabbah (chapter 4) preserves a comment of Rabbi Yitzchak on the verse, "When the Lord your God shall enlarge your border, as He has promised you" (Deuteronomy 12:20). It is...
A student once stood before Rabbi Chanina in prayer and reached for every adjective he could find. O God, who art great, mighty, formidable, magnificent, strong, terrible, valiant,...
The rabbis counted the ways a human being can leave this world. They arrived at nine hundred and three, derived from the verse, “Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death&...
The fifth son of Leah is Issachar, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:18) gives his name a remarkable explanation. Leah says, The Lord hath given me my reward, for that ...
Some tribes fought. Some farmed. Zebulun sailed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the brief Hebrew line in (Genesis 49:13) and gives it a maritime vista. "Zebulon shall dwell upon the ...
After the battle ended, God gave Moses a strange commandment: not to celebrate, but to write. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads it this way: "Write this memorial in the book of the ...
“All its people are sighing, seeking bread; they have given their delights for food to restore life. See, Lord, and look, for I have become abject” (Lamentations 1:11).“All its peo...
“Remember, Lord, what befell us; look, and see our disgrace” (Lamentations 5:1).“Remember, Lord, what befell us.” Rabbi Yitzḥak began: “The greyhound, or the goat” (Proverbs 30:31)...
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 ...
