938 related texts · 25 related myths · Page 1 of 20
The Hebrew Bible records Moses's great farewell poem, the Song of Ha'azinu (Deuteronomy 32), a sweeping poetic indictment of Israel's future unfaithfulness. Targum Onkelos translat...
. Another reading: “Comfort, oh comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1) Said the Holy Blessed One: Who needs to be comforted? For one whose wife died, not the husband? Thus was Zion analo...
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...
It goes deep into how we understand divine favor and the very nature of Torah itself. water is life. But not all water is created equal, at least not symbolically. Our text from Si...
The destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19 is swift and merciless. Fire and brimstone rain down, and the city is gone. But the Targum Jonathan inserts a detail that changes everything:...
The Book of Genesis (19:24) tells us plainly: "And the Lord rained down brimstone and fire upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah from the Lord, from the heavens." But the rabbis, in their e...
The verse But the rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) weren't just interested in the visual. They wanted to understand the why behind the what. The Midrash beg...
The book of Vayikra Rabbah, a treasure trove of rabbinic interpretations on the book of Leviticus, dives deep into this very idea. It all starts with a quote from the prophet Jerem...
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...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
“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...
Midrash on the death of Aaron "I lost the three shepherds in one month" (Zecharia 11:8); and thus, in one month, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses died. Miriam died on the 1st of the month ...
“If it pleases the king, let it be written to eliminate them and I will weigh out ten thousand talents of silver by the hands of the king's craftsmen, to bring to the king's treasu...
A single prophet against four hundred. That was the lineup on Mount Carmel, and Elijah liked his odds. The backstory is bleak. King Ahab had married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, k...
The center of the Sword is a number: seventy. Harba de-Moshe builds its power around a Great Name made of seventy names. In Jewish memory, seventy is never just arithmetic. There a...
Thus do you find with the men of Sodom, that You gave them a grace period for repentance and they did not repent. As it is written (Genesis 18:20-21) "And the L–rd said: The outcry...
Midrash Tehillim turns to Mount Nebo and the First Humans. "For He founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers." Sounds poetic. But the Midrash (rabbinic interpret...
The ancient rabbis certainly did, and they wove some incredible tales to help us understand it. to one, found in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the B...
When Moses turned to the tribe of Levi, his command was not simple slaughter. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, preserves the full instruction, and it is...
That feeling isn't new. Our ancestors knew it well. Take Abraham, for instance. The Torah tells us, "Abraham traveled from there to the region of the south; he lived between Kadesh...
Shemot Rabbah turns to God Rains Down Bread From Heaven for Israel. Think about the manna, that miraculous bread that sustained the Israelites in the desert. In (Exodus 16:4), God ...
Then the Lord said unto Moses: “Behold, I will cause to rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them whet...
Not just a little hunger pang, but the gnawing, desperate emptiness that turns societies upside down. That’s the scene we’re walking into. "The grain that we put aside during the g...
Legends of the Jews turns to Moses Searches for the Right Rock After Miriam's Death. In Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg tells how the miraculous well that had sustained the Isr...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms, opens up this very question. It tells us that the Holy One gifted the world no less than three core elem...
A simple statement: "Doing righteous deeds is of the Lord." But it’s what follows that truly captivates. Rabbi Yitzhak proclaims that everything is in abundance. Righteous deeds in...
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...
The Jewish tradition grapples with these questions in powerful, sometimes terrifying, imagery. to one such image: the cup of retribution. It all starts with a verse from Psalms (75...
There will be false redeemers. Joseph knows this. Before he closes his eyes, he hands his children a test. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis (50:25) expands his oath dramatical...
"Go, and assemble the elders of Israel, and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers hath appeared unto me, the God of Abraham, Izhak, and Jakob, saying, Remembering, I have remem...
When the glory of God was about to pass, Moses needed protection. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, describes the shielding with mystical precision. "It ...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to God's Power Is Restrained Yet Infinitely Greater Than Ours. How do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory ideas? Bamidbar Rabbah offers a beautiful exp...
In fact, according to Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of Rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, the rainbow holds profound meaning, a glimpse, perhaps, into the ver...
In the story of Abram and the King of Sodom, found in Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah) 43, we see a masterclass in ethical leadership and selfless action. After Abram's victorious ...
The verse says, "it was when Pharaoh let the people go," (Exodus 13:17) which leads us to (Song of Songs 4:13): "Your branches are an orchard of pomegranates." Rabbi Levi uses a pa...
Our tradition certainly does. In Vayikra Rabbah, specifically chapter 7, we find a powerful thread connecting arrogance and divine retribution, often in the form of fire. It's a po...
Vayikra Rabbah turns to Rain, Torah, and Light as God's Greatest Gifts. Rabbi Yonatan, in this passage, identifies three core gifts: the Torah, the luminaries (sun, moon, and stars...
Bar Haddaya, the dream interpreter who gave favorable readings to paying clients and devastating ones to non-payers, eventually paid for his corruption with his life. Berakhot 56b ...
When will the Messiah come? According to Sanhedrin 97a, the Talmud presents a seven-year countdown. And then immediately undermines it. The Sages taught: in the Sabbatical cycle du...
The Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt because of the righteous women. According to Sotah 11b, Rav Avira taught that while the men had given up hope under Pharaoh's slavery, th...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Yitbarach (May He Be Blessed) Blessed be the name of the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, who lives and endures forever and eve...
The Small Letters and their Purposes The ALEPH in ויקרא And He called (Leviticus 1:1) is small, to teach that the Holy Blessed One is only revealed to the nations of the earth thro...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
An apostate once led the king into a synagogue at precisely the hour when the Torah reader was chanting the verse from Deuteronomy: "How can one pursue a thousand, and two put ten ...
“Gone from the daughter of Zion is all her splendor. Her princes are like deer that have not found pasture; they went powerless before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:6)“Gone from the...
Rabbi Levi in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: It is written: “The hair of His head like pure wool” (Daniel 7:9); that He has no debt to any creature. Rabbi Yudan in the n...
Rabbi Azarya began: “Do not see wine in its redness, for one who sets his eye on the cup will walk the straight path” (Proverbs 23:31). Rabbi Azarya said: “Do not see wine in its r...
Book of Jubilees turns to Sodom in Heaven. A father, his heart heavy with the future, pleading with his sons. That’s the scene unfolding here. He's laying it all on the line, despe...
