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The Mekhilta offers a parable to explain a seeming contradiction in Jewish prayer practice. A king has two sons. He enters the younger son's room at night and says, "Wake me at sun...
Variantly: "Moses and the children of Israel": We are hereby apprised that Moses chanted the song opposite all of Israel (i.e., that his voice was over and against those of all of ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
The Mekhilta tells a parable. Robbers break into a king's palace. They despoil everything of value. They kill the king's courtiers — his loyal servants, the people who maintained h...
The Mekhilta immediately balances its teaching about short prayers with a counter-example. On another occasion, a disciple led the prayer service before Rabbi Elazar and was extrem...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
When the Torah says that Israel "encamped in Refidim" (Exodus 17:1), the Mekhilta hears more than a place name. The rabbis break the word apart: "rafu yadam" — "their hands weakene...
How seriously should a student revere a teacher? The Mekhilta answers with a statement that sounds almost blasphemous: the fear of one's teacher is to be equated with the fear of H...
and, in the end, Moses arose and implored (that he be permitted to enter the land, etc.), viz. (Devarim 3:24) "And I entreated the L–rd at that time, saying, etc." An analogy: A ki...
The Mekhilta asks a triumphant question: how do we know that all of Moses' many requests — his desperate pleas to enter the Promised Land — were ultimately granted by the Holy One,...
When God took Moses to the summit of Mount Pisgah and showed him the entire Promised Land, the vision included far more than hills and valleys. The Mekhilta asks: how do we know th...
The Mekhilta continues cataloguing everything God showed Moses from Mount Pisgah. The question this time: how do we know that God showed him even the graves of the forefathers? The...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael explores a tradition about what God revealed to Moses at the end of his life. Among the many visions granted to Moses before his death, the rabbis ask...
Three things were given conditionally: Eretz Yisrael, the Temple, and the kingdom of the house of David, but not the Torah scroll and the covenant of Aaron, which were not given co...
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...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) raises a fascinating question about the communication chain at Sinai. What exactly did God tell Moses to relay to Israel, and what did Israel say to Mo...
"saying": They responded to an affirmative (i.e., "You shall, etc.") in the affirmative ("Yes") and to a negative, in the negative. R. Akiva says: to an affirmative in the affirmat...
The Mekhilta offers a parable that illuminates the logic behind the order of events at Sinai. A king of flesh and blood enters a new province. His servants immediately urge him: "M...
The fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," comes with a promise attached: "so that your days be prolonged upon the land." The Mekhilta reads this promise with unfl...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael uses a vivid parable to explain why murder is equated with diminishing the divine image. The teaching compares God to a king of flesh and blood who en...
(Exodus, Ibid. 16) "And they said to Moses: Speak, you, with us, and we will hear, (and let G–d not speak with us, lest we die.") We are hereby apprised that they lacked the streng...
R. Shimon b. Yochai says: Beloved are afflictions, for three goodly gifts were given to Israel and are desired by the nations of the world, and they were given to them only through...
The Torah permits the making of cherubim — golden winged figures — atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (Exodus 25:18). These are not merely decorative. They are the ...
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai says: it is said (Devarim 27:6) "Of whole (shleimoth) stones shall you build the altar of the L–rd"—stones which repose peace ("shalom"). Now does this no...
Why do the laws of adjudication — civil justice — take precedence over all the other commandments in the Torah? Rabbi Shimon gave a deceptively simple answer: because adjudication ...
The Torah specifies that a Hebrew maidservant does not go free through the loss of "organ prominences" — external body parts like teeth or eyes that, if knocked out by the master, ...
"then she shall go out free": when she is a bogereth (i.e., after twelve and a half years); "without money": when she is a na'arah (from twelve and a day until twelve and half.) No...
Rebbi — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — asked why the Torah specifically mentions "a rod" in the law about striking a bondservant. He argued that the word "rod" is extra — it is not needed ...
The Torah uses the word "punished" in (Exodus 21:22) when describing the penalty for a man who injures a pregnant woman during a fight. "Then he shall be punished" — but punished h...
The Torah explicitly states the father's rights regarding the seduced daughter. But what about a daughter who was raped rather than seduced? Does the father have the same power to ...
The Torah commands that when you take a garment as a pledge for a loan, you must return it to the borrower so they can sleep in it at night. But the Mekhilta noticed a problem: the...
"to the dog shall you throw it": "to the dog"—as to the dog (i.e., anything like a dog.) You say this, but perhaps it is to be taken literally? It is, therefore, written (Ibid. 14:...
To teach that a dog is of higher station than a slave, a treifah being relegated to a dog, but only neveilah, to a slave, and to teach that the Holy One Blessed be He does not with...
"return shall you return it to him": (Devarim 22:2) "If your brother is not near you" implies that until now Scripture has been speaking of one who is either near you or far from y...
The Mekhilta catalogs the names used to describe idolatry and contrasts them with the names used to describe God. The contrast is devastating. Idolatry is mentioned only in derogat...
The Torah tells us God instructed Abraham: "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of t...
It's more than just geography; it's about a direct connection to the Divine. : a place so sacred, it’s said to be constantly under God’s watchful eye. (Deuteronomy 11:12) tells us ...
Our story comes from Midrash Tehillim, a fascinating collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms. Here, the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) tells us about a part...
Even Moses, leading the Israelites out of Egypt, felt that way. He looked at the nations surrounding them, nations far more numerous, and thought, "These nations are more numerous ...
Isn't it fascinating how language can be so fluid, so open to interpretation? The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) starts with a rather stark statement: "Speak differentl...
The midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) starts with a powerful question ripped straight from Psalm 10: "Why do you stand far off, O Lord?" It's a cry of pain, a plea for int...
How long will You hide Your face from me?" This verse, a raw expression of pain and longing, is at the heart of a beautiful passage in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic in...
King David knew that feeling well. Psalm 13, a cry for help, is raw with that vulnerability: "Lord, my God, look upon me and enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death..." ...
The ancient sages grappled with that same feeling. They explored the power of prayer, the weight of our words, and the question of whether God truly hears us. And they found some f...
But let’s dive into what the ancient interpreters found within those words. Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Psalms, offers some fascinating p...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms, dives deep into the very first verse of Psalm 25: "To David, to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul." It soun...
Turns out, our tradition has a lot to say about that. The book of Proverbs (26:26) reminds us, "His malice may be concealed by deception, but his wickedness will be exposed in the ...
The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) begins with the verse, "To the conductor, a song of praise. Shout to God, all the earth, sing the glory of His name." It beautifully ...
