4,564 related texts · 28 related myths · Page 3 of 96
Instead of rejoicing, a wave of despair washed over them. "And you murmured in your tents..." That simple phrase from Sifrei Devarim (Deuteronomy) opens a window into a moment of p...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Moses Pleads Desperately to Enter the Promised Land. Why that time? What made it so significant? Sifrei Devarim offers an analogy: Imagine a province asking...
The ancient sages grappled with a similar idea when considering the Torah. Could the very words of wisdom, the sacred teachings, ever become… detrimental? Sifrei Devarim, a legal m...
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...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 3) contains two stunning additions to the biblical narrative. The first involves a giant king. The second involves the most desperate prayer Mos...
Even after three signs, Moses refuses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the protest with a phrase more vivid than the Hebrew: Moses is of a staggering mouth and staggering speech, ...
Deuteronomy, or Devarim in Hebrew, is full of Moses' final words, his reflections on a lifetime of leadership. And within the rabbinic compilation called Devarim Rabbah, a midrash ...
In Jewish tradition, the battles against Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, loom incredibly large. The sages even equated these triumphs to the monumental victory over Pharao...
Remember him? He was Abraham's nephew. His daughters famously conceived children by him after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:30-38), leading to the birth of the ...
Two words haunted ancient Israel: shedim (demons) and se'irim. The Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing to either. They sacrificed anyway. The se'irim were the hairy ones, sa...
(Genesis 19:38), in the Targum's rendering: "And the younger also brought forth a son, and she called his name Bar-Ammi, because he was the son of her father. He is the father of t...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "All the inhabitants of Canaan melted ('namogu')": When the inhabitants of Canaan heard that the Holy One Blessed be He had said to Moses (Devarim 20:16-17) "But fr...
After being rejected by the sons of Esau, God turned to the sons of Ammon and Moab and made the same offer: "Will you accept the Torah?" The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records their...
The ancient sages did. They saw words as potent forces, capable of building worlds or tearing them down. Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of P...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Moses Cries Out How Can I Bear Your Contentiousness. This isn't just a general complaint. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpret...
The familiar picture has him as this towering, almost superhuman figure, but behind the miracles and the commandments, there was a real person confronting a monumental task. And so...
Moments where the choices seem equally appealing, or equally daunting. This week, in Sifrei Devarim 53, we find a powerful exploration of just that – the choices we face and the il...
It all comes down to how we interpret the texts, how we tease out the deeper meanings hidden within the words. Let's take a little journey into Sifrei Devarim, a portion of the Deu...
It might surprise you. to a seemingly obscure passage and see what we uncover about purity, impurity, and who gets a seat at the table – or, in this case, at the plate. Our journey...
It might seem a bit arcane to us now, but these details were crucial to maintaining the sacred order. to a fascinating passage from Sifrei Devarim, specifically section 73 (referen...
Specifically, The Torah outlines that a Hebrew slave is to be freed in the seventh year of their servitude. But what happens if the slave, presented with freedom, refuses it? What ...
Sifrei Devarim turns to What Deuteronomy's Prophetic Test Teaches About True Prophecy. Okay, What does it really mean? The text isn't suggesting vigilante justice. Not at all. Inst...
Like you've finally built that dream house, and then… boom! Duty calls. Well, Jewish tradition has something to say about that feeling, and it all starts with a verse in Devarim, t...
" The term sorer umoreh itself is fascinating. It appears in the Book of Deuteronomy (21:18-21), outlining a grim scenario. But what exactly does it mean to be "wayward and rebelli...
Sometimes, even seemingly small words open up worlds of interpretation. to one such instance, found in Sifrei Devarim, specifically dealing with (Deuteronomy 23:9). The verse state...
Sifrei Devarim turns to The Power and Harm Hidden in Our Words. Sifrei Devarim, a fascinating work of halakha (Jewish law) connected to the Book of Deuteronomy, brings up a really ...
Our starting point is a rather unusual prohibition. (Deuteronomy 23:19) states: "You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord you...
There's more to it than you might imagine, especially when we peek into the ancient Jewish agricultural laws. to a fascinating little verse from Devarim, Deuteronomy, specifically ...
Sifrei Devarim reads the law of yibbum, levirate marriage, through the exact words spoken by the surviving brother. Our focus is on the law of yibbum, often translated as levirate ...
Not just any rain, but a gentle, life-giving shower falling on parched grass. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrashim (rabbinic interpretive commentary) on the Book of ...
The answer, well, it's more mystical than you might imagine. The book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), the last book of the Torah, tells us, "And He buried him in the valley, in the land ...
The Alexandria synagogue, the Talmud remembers, was so large that a cantor had to wave a flag when the congregation was meant to answer Amen, no human voice could carry from pulpit...
Jewish tradition sees so much more. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 19, unpacks this verse, revealing layers of meaning and offering pr...
It all stems from the opening of Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses stands before the Israelites, ready to deliver his final, powerful speeches. And the very first verse we en...
In (Deuteronomy 3:2), God tells Moses, "Do not fear him, as I have delivered him and his entire people and his land into your hand; you shall do to him as you did to Siḥon, king of...
The ancient rabbis pondered this very idea, using a seemingly simple verse about eating meat to unlock profound insights about freedom, desire, and divine provision. It all starts ...
We all have. But what if those words had far more power than we imagined? What if they could actually… physically harm us? Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings and in...
Even Moses, the great lawgiver, felt it. In Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Deuteronomy, we find a poignant moment where Moses pleads with God. He...
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...
(Numb. 21:21:) “Then Israel sent messengers.” All the words of Torah are necessary to each other, for what one covers over the other opens up.146Numb. R. 19:28. It is stated here (...
These are the ten questions that Rabbi Eliezer asked regarding the resurrection of the dead: The first one is - will God resurrect some of Israel or all of them? The answer is that...
Hell has seven names. This is what Aggadat Bereshit says when Malachi promises "the day is coming, burning like an oven" (Malachi 3:19). The rabbis did not flinch from the geograph...
Hannah was barren for years. Her husband loved her and her rival taunted her and the priest Eli misread her prayer as drunkenness. The whole story is about a woman whose deepest lo...
The sages of the Talmud taught that the yetzer hara, the evil inclination within every human being, goes by seven different names in Scripture. Each prophet saw a different face of...
Rabbi Simlai delivered one of the most famous homilies in the Talmud (Makkot 23b). Moses, he said, was given 613 commandments at Sinai. And the number is not arbitrary. Three hundr...
“May it not befall you, all wayfarers. Look and see: Is there any pain like my pain, which has been done to me, with which the Lord has tormented me on the day of His enflamed wrat...
What did Mordekhai say to someone who would say to him: “Why are you violating the king’s command?” (Esther 3:3) Rabbi Levi said: Mordekhai would say: ‘Moses our master cautioned u...
"Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deuteronomy 25:17). God remembers the righteous for good and the wicked for destruction. When He recalled Abraham, He spoke with affection: "Shal...
