759 related texts · Page 13 of 16
Rabbi Akiva taught that there were three things Moses could not visualize on his own, no matter how great his prophetic power. God had to physically point them out to him. The firs...
R. Yonathan said to him: But we still have not heard! R. Yoshiyah: It is written (Ibid. 28:2) "Command the children of Israel and say to them: My offering, My bread … shall you obs...
"Draw forth and take for yourselves": "Draw forth"—he who possesses his own; "and take" (i.e., acquire)—he who does not possess his own. R. Yossi Haglili says (The meaning is:) "Dr...
"and slaughter the Pesach (Passover): It is a mitzvah to slaughter it as a Pesach offering. If he does not offer it as such, he transgresses the mitzvah. I might think that in the ...
(Exodus 13:6) declares, "And on the seventh day, a festival to the Lord." The Hebrew word for festival, chag, is related to chagigah, the special festival offering brought at the T...
Shimon b. Azzai says: What is the intent of "Veha'avarta"? From (Leviticus 27:32) "Whatever (beast) passes ('ya'avor') under the staff" (for tithing), I would think that an orphan,...
The Torah draws a direct line between the tenth plague and a permanent commandment: "And the Lord killed every first-born... therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord every male first-bor...
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...
Because of (the following) four things R. Mattia b. Charash went to R. Elazar b. Hakappar in Ludia. He said to him: My master, did you hear of the four divisions of atonement expou...
Similarly, "And if an altar of stones you make for Me." This is mandatory. You say it is mandatory, but perhaps it is optional. (This is not so,) for it is written (Devarim 27:6) "...
Rabbi Yishmael examined a verse about the priests serving at the altar and found a surprising teaching hidden inside what appeared to be a redundancy. The verse warns: "so that you...
Where exactly on the ear is the bondsman pierced? The Mekhilta records a dispute between two authorities. Rabbi Yehudah said the piercing goes through the lobe — the soft, fleshy p...
The Mekhilta now draws the ultimate conclusion from the legal hierarchy it has been constructing. Murder overrides the sacrificial service. This is established. But saving a life o...
The Torah says, "Six days shall you do your work" (Exodus 23:12), a commandment to labor for six days and rest on the seventh, the Shabbat (the Sabbath). But the Mekhilta noticed s...
"They shall not appear before Me empty-handed" — the Torah requires that the pilgrims who come to the Temple on the three festivals must bring something. But what? The Mekhilta say...
(Exodus 23:18) "You shall not slaughter in the presence of chametz the blood of My sacrifice": You shall not slaughter the Pesach (Passover) offering while chametz is still present...
The Torah commands regarding the Passover sacrifice that "there shall not remain the fat of My festival offering until morning." The Mekhilta takes this verse and extracts from it ...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of describing this feeling: the wandering of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah, often translated as "divine presence," is under...
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, culminates in a moment like that. It's called Neilah – the Closing Prayer. But what exactly is closing? What’s at stake? Well, according to tradit...
It might sound a little unusual, but Jewish tradition is rich with symbolism, and this particular image is incredibly powerful. Imagine this: It's the sixth of Sivan, the day appoi...
That’s the Ninth of Av, or Tisha B’Av. We remember the destruction of both Holy Temples in Jerusalem on this day. Not just that, but a whole string of tragedies that seem to have c...
Jewish tradition certainly hints at it, especially when we talk about the Temple. We all know about the Temple in Jerusalem. But did you know there’s a celestial version, a Beit Ha...
The Temple, the very center of Jewish life, engulfed in flames. What happens when the unthinkable becomes reality? The Talmud (B. Ta'anit 29a) recounts a powerful image: the High P...
There's a story in the Torah, a rather unsettling one, about two brothers, Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, and it's been echoing through Jewish tradition for millennia. We find...
What would that era be like? What wonders would unfold? Jewish tradition whispers of one breathtaking miracle: a magical tree, springing to life right there in the heart of the cit...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Psalms, grapples with that very feeling. Specifically, it dives into Psalm 3. And right off the bat, we get a...
The passage opens with an intriguing idea: prayer itself as judgment. David, contemplating his own mortality and the possibility of divine judgment, seems to be saying, "If my judg...
Rabbi Samuel bar Nachmani kicks things off, wondering why we sweat during times of transition. He suggests it's connected to the fall of one kingdom and the rise of another. He poi...
Midrash Tehillim, a fascinating collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers some intriguing insights. It delves into the meaning behind Psalm 20, verse 4: "Remember...
The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, wrestles with this very idea in Psalm 42. It speaks of God "passing through the camp with an a...
Specifically, we're looking at Midrash Tehillim 42. It's a plea, a challenge, almost a demand, directed at God. The speaker in this Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) begin...
We often think of praise as loud, exuberant, filled with song and dance. But what about the silence? What kind of praise is that? (Psalm 65:1-2) gives us a clue: “For the conductor...
That’s a question that’s wrestled with in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms. Our passage today comes from Midrash Tehillim 65, and it...
Even in ancient times, people struggled with the feeling that enemies were gaining ground, that darkness was closing in. And the texts? They spoke to it. They still speak to it. to...
It's more than just a day off; it's a cornerstone of Jewish life, a sacred pause in the week. But why Shabbat (the Sabbath)? What makes it so special? Midrash Tehillim, a collectio...
It's not always what you might expect. to a passage from Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, and see. The text begins with a stark sta...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, suggests it's tied to a future time when "the face of the earth is renewed," a time when God's gl...
Sometimes, the connection isn’t immediately obvious. Take, for instance, the verses about atonement and taking a census in the book of Exodus. What’s the link? The Pesikta DeRav Ka...
It’s a question that leads us to a fascinating passage in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a beautiful, ancient text that weaves together biblical narrative and rabbinic interpretation. The...
That’s precisely the situation Joshua faced after the Israelites' initial defeat at Ai. The story, as we find it in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, chapter 38, begins with Joshua in anguis...
Ezra, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jehozadak – powerful figures in their time – are leading a grand assembly. They’ve gathered 800 priests, 800 children, and – im...
The story starts, as so many do, with a commandment. God tells Saul, the first king of Israel, to utterly destroy Amalek. Wipe them out. Erase their memory from under heaven. A pre...
That feeling isn’t new. In fact, there's a beautiful passage in the Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 499 that speaks directly to this. It uses the image of extinguished candles to describe t...
It deals with a rather specific scenario: what happens when someone steals from a convert to Judaism, a ger, and then that convert dies? The verse in question is Bamidbar 5:8: "And...
Seems like a prime opportunity for spiritual growth. But Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection of legal interpretations on the Book of Numbers, pulls no punches. It points out a rather gla...
Our ancestors certainly did. Today we're diving into a fascinating story from Sifrei Bamidbar, a legal commentary on the Book of Numbers, that grapples with just that feeling of ex...
It’s a question that’s been wrestled with for centuries, and the answers are surprisingly nuanced. Today, we're diving into a fascinating passage from Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection...
It’s a fascinating topic, and today we're diving into a passage from Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection of legal interpretations on the Book of Numbers, that sheds light on just that. T...
