4,193 related texts · Page 4 of 88
"I shall sing to the Lord," who is a Judge. After celebrating God as powerful, rich, wise, and merciful, the Mekhilta arrives at the attribute that ties all the others together: ju...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael preserves a stunning image of dialogue between Israel and the Holy Spirit—a call and response that echoes through the ages. When Israel declares the S...
When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the news sent shockwaves through the ancient world. The Mekhilta examines the verse "Then the chiefs of Edom were confounded" (Exodus 15:15...
The Shema — "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4) — is the most foundational declaration in all of Judaism. But the Mekhilta noticed something odd a...
Jewish tradition often sees them as holding special weight, particularly when they come from someone like King David or Solomon. Let's look at a passage from Sifrei Devarim, a coll...
But the rabbis in Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)im on the Book of Deuteronomy, ask a crucial question: Is that verse… subtly dissi...
Our first stop: plowing. Deuteronomy 22 tells us, "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together" (Deuteronomy 22:10). Seems straightforward. But the rabbis of old, never one...
Let's talk about dogs. Yes, dogs. And lambs. And… well, let’s just say it involves transactions that aren’t exactly kosher, in the most literal sense. In Sifrei Devarim, a collecti...
Today, we're diving into one of those intriguing corners of Jewish law, specifically a passage from Sifrei Devarim 288. It’s all about brothers, inheritance, and a rather complex s...
It turns out, this isn't just a nice sentiment, but a deep spiritual truth, at least according to some fascinating Jewish texts. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal and ethic...
It’s not just a simple border dispute; there's so much more bubbling beneath the surface. We find the story in (Numbers 21:23): “Siḥon did not allow Israel to pass within his borde...
The ancient rabbis certainly thought about that, and they found a fascinating example in the book of Genesis. We're diving into Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpreta...
(Deut. 2:2-4:) “Then the Lord spoke unto me, saying, ‘You have had enough of going about this mountain; turn north. Now charge the people, saying, “You are passing through the terr...
The Temple Scroll does something no other Dead Sea Scroll attempts—it rewrites biblical law. And one of its most striking revisions concerns the Israelite king. (Deuteronomy 17:14-...
A donkey saw an angel before the greatest prophet of the ancient Near East did. That detail alone tells you everything about the story of Balaam. Balak, the king of Moab, was terri...
Moses spent his final days doing what he had done since Sinai: giving laws. But these were different. These were the laws of a man who knew he would never cross the Jordan. The mil...
The prophet Ezekiel delivered an oracle of terrifying certainty: "Behold, it has come; it has arrived, says the Lord God. This is the day of which I spoke" (Ezekiel 39:8). But when...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, for those unfamiliar, is a fascinating early medieval text, a midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), that weaves together biblical narrative, legend, a...
Moses certainly did. In the Book of Numbers – Bamidbar in Hebrew – we find him at a breaking point. The Israelites are complaining, constantly. He’s exhausted. He cries out to God,...
It turns out, quite a bit. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us a peek into the anxieties of Moses himself....
We often associate it with age, with experience, with the learned. But what if I told you that wisdom, true Torah wisdom, can flow from the most unexpected sources? Sifrei Devarim,...
Did Moses, standing there on Mount Sinai, suddenly become a zoologist specializing in every creature under the sun? It's a question that's bothered scholars for centuries, and it p...
We're looking at laws concerning who can and cannot enter the congregation of Israel. It's a topic that might seem distant, but it raises profound questions about forgiveness, coll...
Because "you were a stranger in his land." It sounds simple enough, but Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah digs deeper. The Egyptians, let's be real, weren’t exactly acting out of pure altru...
Our tradition is full of fascinating interpretations of seemingly simple phrases. Take, for instance, the verse in Deuteronomy (32:2), "Let my teaching drop as the rain." The Sifre...
We read the words, we imagine the scene... but can we truly grasp the awe, the terror, the sheer overwhelming experience of receiving the Torah? Sifrei Devarim, a collection of ear...
That feeling, that's what we're diving into today. We’re looking at a tiny phrase tucked away in Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)im ...
Promises to ourselves, to others, maybe even to the Divine. But following through? That's the real test. The Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, shares a fa...
They tell us of Moses' death. But… wait a minute. How could Moses himself have written about his own demise? It's a question that's puzzled Jewish scholars for centuries. The Sifre...
The verse says that Moses, "the servant of the L-rd," died "by the word of the L-rd" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Seems simple enough. But the ancient rabbis saw layers of meaning here. The...
The standard text of (Deuteronomy 1) opens with Moses speaking to Israel "beyond the Jordan." But the Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed between the 1st and 4...
Targum Jonathan transforms the assembly laws of (Deuteronomy 23) with details that reshape who belongs to Israel and why. A man "born of fornication" cannot enter the congregation—...
Moses had the worst errand of his life. God told him to bring his brother up the mountain to die. He could not bring himself to say the words. Aaron said them for him. "My brother,...
In ancient Israel, a person who killed someone by accident did not go free. Neither was he executed. He ran for his life to one of six cities of refuge, and the roads that led ther...
Rabbi Akiva was caught teaching Torah in public after the Roman Empire banned its study following the Bar Kokhba rebellion. When Pappus ben Yehuda warned him of the danger, Akiva a...
The rabbis once overruled God—and God laughed. According to Bava Metzia 59b, the incident began with an argument about an oven. Rabbi Eliezer declared a certain oven ritually pure....
When Pharaoh decided to enslave the Israelites, he consulted three advisors. According to Sotah 11a, what happened to each of them perfectly matched the advice they gave. Balaam re...
The Hebrew Bible promises: "A prophet from your midst, of your brethren, like me, will God establish for you" (Deuteronomy 18:15). Targum Onkelos translates this verse without alte...
When Israel went out of Egypt, Moses said ‘God your God has been with you these past forty years: you have lacked nothing’ (Deuteronomy 2:7); and when Israel went out of Jerusalem,...
When Israel went out of Egypt, Moses said ‘and in the wilderness, where you saw how God your God carried you, as a man carries his son’(Deuteronomy 1:31); and when they went out of...
David lifts his eyes to the mountains and prays — "A song of ascents" — and God answers him through a text he might not have expected: Moses's blessing of Judah. "And this is the b...
Joseph was brought down to Egypt (Genesis 39:1). Lamentations gives the frame: "Good is the man who sits alone and is silent, for he will bear the yoke upon himself. He will put hi...
"But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me'" (Isaiah 49:14). And God answers — not with proof of presence but with a reminder of what "remembering" actual...
At least, that's what we learn from Bereshit Rabbah 21, a fascinating passage in the ancient rabbinic commentary on Genesis. Rav tells us that "in every place, the eastern directio...
The book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, opens with the simple phrase, "These are the words…" And immediately, the ancient interpreters of our tradition, the rabbis of the Midrash (rabbin...
Maybe you'd messed up before, and the consequences stung. It's a very human feeling, that hesitation. And guess what? Even Moses, Moshe Rabbenu himself, felt it too. Our story come...
We often hear about the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the mighty hand of God... But what about the internal processes, the spiritual shifts that paved the way for that monum...
Today, we're diving into a fascinating discussion from Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, focusing on the Shema, Judaism's central...
