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The Book of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) [Reishit Chochmah: Gate of Fear: Chapter 12; Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary): Section 1] It...
..."Let not the rich person glorify themselves with their wealth (Yirm 9:22)." This [refers to] Korach the Levite, who had three hundred mules just to carry the load of the keys to...
Midrash HaGadol: Several manuscripts of this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) are found in well-known libraries, and one belonged to Dr. Alexander Kohut, who used it in t...
(2) (Fol. 3b) R. Abahu said: "Cyrus was a worthy king, and therefore were his royal years counted in accordance with those of the kings of Israel [beginning with Nissan]." R. Josep...
(9) We are taught in a Baraitha: R. Juda taught in the name of R. Akiba: "Why does the Torah command (Lev. 23, 10) a sheaf of the first fruits to be brought on the Passover? Becaus...
(20) MISHNAH (the earliest code of rabbinic law): For the proclamation of six New Moon days, messengers are sent out: for Nissan, on account of the Passover; for Ab, on account of ...
Kleopatra asks Rabbi Meir whether the dead rise in their clothes. The reply was “In their clothes. The wheat, when sown grows with the cover (husks) on, and how much more should th...
Proklos b. Filoslos asks R. Gamliel why does not God destroy the idols. The Rabbi replies "If a man calls a dog by the name of his father, will the father be angry with the son or ...
In the dark years of Roman persecution, when teaching Torah was a crime punishable by death, two students of Rabbi Joshua went into hiding. They disguised themselves and moved care...
R. Johanan b. Zakai was asked by R. Eleazar b. Arach permission to expound some of the mysteries of the creation (Ma’ase Merkaba). R. Johanan dismounted from his ass, as angels mig...
A farmer was harvesting his field when he realized he had forgotten a sheaf of grain. It was sitting in the far corner of the field, left behind in the rush of the day's work. His ...
King Solomon wished to build a temple with unhewn stone, as he was not allowed to use iron, that being forbidden by law. So he tried to obtain Shamir which he was told was in the p...
Hananya, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, was a respected scholar living in Babylon. And one day he made a decision that nearly split the Jewish world in two. He decided to set the cale...
Rabbi Judah HaNasi needed to send a teacher to the town of Simonia. The community there required a sage who could teach Torah, render legal decisions, and guide the people. He chos...
King Shapur of Persia once asked the sage Shmuel: "Tell me what I will see in my dream tonight." It was a test — could a Jewish sage truly predict what a foreign king would dream? ...
R. Johanan was one of the last beautiful men of Jerusalem. Rish Lakish, a robber, surprised him in the bath thinking him to be a woman. He was converted to study on the promise of ...
In time of drought the Rabbi was informed from Heaven to appeal to a merchant for intercession. He was 166— ashamed to call upon an apparently ignorant man but none the less did so...
At the court of a king there lived a Jew who was very handsome. The wife of the minister fell in love with him, but he refused her advances. After a time she gave birth to a boy an...
A student once approached Rabbi Akiba and asked him a deceptively simple question: "How great is the value of the Torah?" Rabbi Akiba did not hesitate. "Each single word of the Tor...
Rabban Gamliel's pride cost him his position — and the way it happened revealed how even the greatest leader can be brought low by arrogance. The Talmud (Berakhot 27b-28a) records ...
The sages of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asked a question that seems simple but opens onto infinity: where does all the water in the rivers go? Every river on ea...
Rabbi Akiba was once traveling by ship when a terrible storm struck. The waves rose like mountains, the wind tore at the sails, and the vessel broke apart beneath the passengers' f...
The flood waters had covered everything. Noah had been sealed in the ark for months — the rain, the silence, the slow recession of the water, the waiting. Then the text says simply...
When the righteous multiply in the world, good things multiply with them. This is Aggadat Bereshit's reading of "When the righteous are many, the people rejoice" (Proverbs 29:2). N...
When God looks down at a wicked generation, the rabbis said, He searches for one righteous person to carry the weight of atonement for all the rest. This is the reading Aggadat Ber...
Zechariah saw a horseman in a vision of the night (Zechariah 1:8). The rabbis identified this figure as the prince of Edom — the heavenly guardian angel of the nation that had rule...
Moses stood before Israel and said: "You have been shown to know that the Lord, He is God; there is none beside Him" (Deuteronomy 4:35). Not told — shown. The plagues, the sea, the...
It’s a question that's haunted philosophers and theologians for millennia, and Jewish tradition definitely has some answers. At the very heart of it all, there is ONE God. Absolute...
One that opens up a whole world of understanding about the special role this tribe played. Our story starts in the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, which literally means "in th...
It states: "Every gift of all the sacred items of the children of Israel that they will present to the priest shall be his." Sounds pretty straightforward. But the rabbis of the Mi...
Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives deep into the prophet Amos's rebuke of those who are "tranquil in Zion" (Amos 6:1). Who are these ...
That’s exactly what happens in Bamidbar Rabbah 13, a Midrash on the Book of Numbers. It all starts with a single letter: a vav. The passage asks, "vekorban (a sacrificial offering)...
Bamidbar Rabbah, that incredible collection of Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives deep into this very question. It’s not just a ma...
to a story from Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, that explores just this. The story goes that God tells Moses to gather seventy men to he...
We're in the thick of the story of the spies, sent to scout out the Land of Israel. They return with tales of giants and fortified cities, sowing fear among the Israelites. But bef...
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...
We often read about the grand miracles, the parting of the sea, the manna from heaven. But what about the gritty, day-to-day decisions, the moments of doubt and bravery? (Numbers 2...
The text opens with a quote from (Numbers 22:2): "Balak son of Tzipor saw all that Israel had done to the Emorites." This sets the stage for a larger discussion about divine justic...
Our story today, drawn from Bamidbar Rabbah 20, a section of the classical Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), plunges us right into such a situation – a tale of Moabites, ...
Like we can somehow pull the divine wool over God's eyes. Today, we’re diving into a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 20 that explores this very idea, highlighting three fi...
It might seem like a simple opening, but Jewish tradition finds layers of meaning even in the placement of God’s name in the very first verse. Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai, a prominent f...
They believed every single letter, every seemingly insignificant word, held profound secrets. Take the very first verse of Genesis, Bereshit (בראשית): "In the beginning, God create...
Rabbi Yoḥanan, a towering figure in the Talmudic era, offers a startling idea. He suggests that when God created the sea, He made a deal. A condition (tna’o in Hebrew) that it woul...
Our tradition acknowledges that feeling, especially when we consider the mysteries of creation. What was it like before the Big Bang of Genesis? What was God "doing"? The Rabbis of...
It sounds shocking, I know. The story starts with a curious discovery. In Rabbi Meir's personal Torah scroll, a peculiar reading was found in the verse “And, behold, it was very [m...
The rabbis of old certainly pondered this question. In Bereshit Rabbah, that incredible collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis, we find Rabbi Yehuda and Rabb...
We all know the story: the ark, the flood, the animals two by two. But have you ever stopped to wonder about the timing of it all? It's not just about the rain, but about the gener...
It’s not just about the rain, or the oceans. It's about something much deeper – a relationship, even a conversation, between God and the very elements of the universe. We find a fa...
