4,564 related texts · 28 related myths · Page 5 of 96
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...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Miriam's Well and the True Meaning of Tzedakah. The Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, offers a fascinating perspective. It asks, "...
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). But the ancient rabbis saw layers of meaning here. The Sifrei Devarim, a le...
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 ble...
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" actuall...
When Rome forbade Israel to study Torah on pain of death, Rabbi Akiva went right on teaching it in the open, gathering crowds around him. His friend Pappus ben Yehudah stumbled acr...
Someone once came to Rabbi Ishmael, the son of Joshua, with a question that must have been asked in every generation: how did the wealthy of the land of Israel come by their wealth...
Rabbi Levi told a parable that holds three prophets in one sentence. Israel, he said, is like a noblewoman who had three friends. One knew her in her prosperity. One knew her in he...
This is one of the cruelest and most luminous stories in the Talmud, preserved both in tractate Avodah Zarah and in Moses Gaster's 1924 collection as exemplum No. 67. Rabbi Chanina...
(Leviticus 19:9-10) and (Deuteronomy 24:19) lay out a peculiar agricultural law. When you harvest your field and forget a sheaf behind you, you are forbidden to go back for it. It ...
When the Torah laid out the rules for Israel's king, it gave three specific warnings. In Deuteronomy 17, Moses wrote that the king shall not acquire for himself many horses. He sha...
Pharaoh is specific about the travel arrangements. He thinks of the women. He thinks of the children. He thinks of the honor due an aged patriarch. "Thou, Joseph, shalt appoint for...
The first verse of the Torah contains two words that English translations almost always skip. The Hebrew et (את) appears twice in (Genesis 1:1), "in the beginning God created et th...
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...
The familiar telling remembers 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...
A fascinating discussion from Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, focusing on the Shema, Judaism's central declaration of belief: "...
Take this passage from Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Deuteronomy. It all starts with a verse: "It will be, because you heed these ordinances, an...
The Jewish tradition certainly does. In fact, it links our speech directly to our relationship with the Divine. Devarim Rabbah, a collection of homilies on the Book of Deuteronomy,...
The Torah touches on this very human struggle. In (Deuteronomy 29:3), Moses says to the Israelites, "But the Lord has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to he...
It seems so natural, so ingrained in Jewish practice, that we might not even stop to ask why. But the Rabbis of old, they were always asking. They wanted to know the source, the re...
Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the book of Deuteronomy, opens our eyes to just how deeply Torah can impact us. It starts with a verse from Proverbs (4:22): “...
In Jewish tradition, the answer might surprise you: it's the Torah. Devarim Rabbah, a collection of homilies on the Book of Deuteronomy, offers a powerful idea: God says that if we...
In (Deuteronomy 30:12-14), we find the verse, "It is not in the heavens… It is not beyond the sea… Rather, the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you...
The Book of Deuteronomy, or Devarim in Hebrew, opens with Moses preparing to bless the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land. But the Rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic inter...
Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us a glimpse into that incredible scene, a cosmic struggle between life and death, between Mose...
Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the book of Deuteronomy, opens up this very question for us. It begins with the verse, "This is the blessing," and then explor...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. This week, It all starts with a verse The familiar version gives us: "He gave to Moses, as He concluded speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two ...
Surprisingly, the ancient Rabbis found clues in the most unexpected places – even in the words of the wicked Pharaoh himself! It's a fascinating idea, isn't it? That even through t...
“The ways of Zion are in mourning, without Festival pilgrims; all her gates are desolate; her priests sigh; her maidens are forlorn, and she is embittered” (Lamentations 1:4).“The ...
There was an incident involving Doeg ben Yosef who died and left a young son to his mother. She would measure him in handbreadths and donate his weight in gold to the Temple182Lite...
“See, Lord, for I am in distress, my innards burn, my heart overturned within me, for I have been defiant. Outside the sword bereaves; in the house, it is like death” (Lamentations...
“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” (Lamentations 3:37).“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” – who did command? H...
It is written: “And set it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14), this is one of four righteous people to whom a portent was given; two sensed it and two did not sense it. A porten...
The Book of Esther opens with a single verse that the rabbis of Esther Rabbah read as a cry of anguish: "It was during the days of Ahasuerus" (Esther 1:1). But to understand why th...
