714 related texts · 5 related myths · Page 4 of 15
They’re powerful forces, capable of shaking the very foundations of existence. In Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 123, we encounter a fascinating scene. The Masters of the Mishna...
We remember the giant, the slingshot, the underdog victory. But what if there was more to those five smooth stones than met the eye? The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a profou...
The Mekhilta cites King Asa of Judah as yet another example of prayer triumphing over impossible military odds. The story appears in (II Chronicles 14:10), where Asa faces a massiv...
(Exodus 14:30) "And Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore of the sea": For four reasons: That they not say: Just as we came up on this side, so they came up on another side (and will ...
Rabbi Yonathan made a declaration that would strike most people as counterintuitive: "Beloved are afflictions." Suffering, he taught, is not a sign of divine abandonment. It is a s...
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) "...
(Exodus 21:17) states: "And if one curses his father and his mother, he shall be put to death." The Mekhilta asks why this verse is needed at all, since (Leviticus 20:9) already sa...
"And if one curses his father and his mother", the Mekhilta notices that this verse uses "and," connecting father and mother together. Taken literally, this might mean the death pe...
The Mekhilta cites (Psalms 50:7-8) to illustrate God's unique relationship with Israel: "Hear, My people, and I will speak; Israel, and I will exhort you. I am God, your God. I wil...
The familiar story centers on Jacob's dream. Fleeing his brother Esau, he rests his head on a pile of stones and dreams of a ladder stretching to heaven, angels ascending and desce...
Can you feel the tension? Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer elaborates on this already dramatic moment. Haman approaches Mordecai with the royal garments. “Arise,” he says, dripping with fals...
The verse Now, what exactly does that mean, "the oath of the curse?" It sounds rather…intense, doesn't it? The text goes on to unpack this phrase. It references (Leviticus 5:1), wh...
It turns out, this isn't just good manners – it might be ancient wisdom! The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early Jewish legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, teaches ...
Before Jacob's passing, he gathered his sons. But it wasn’t just a sentimental family reunion. First, he rebuked them, each individually, and then he addressed them all together. W...
Sifrei Devarim turns one punishment verse into a counting problem: how many stones are required? The verse in (Deuteronomy 13:11) states, "And you shall stone him with stones and h...
Like winning the lottery. But what if there's more to it? What if we have a role to play? The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal Midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, tackles this...
That tension, that very human struggle, is right at the heart of this little passage from Sifrei Devarim. It opens with a seemingly straightforward phrase: "that the L-rd your G-d ...
It all starts with the verse: "And this is the blessing..." What does that seemingly simple phrase actually mean? The text offers a couple of intriguing interpretations. The first ...
Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name (41:18:31). May our Rabb...
The future Jerusalem will be built from precious stones so massive they defy imagination. According to Bava Batra 75a, God will take gems thirty cubits by thirty cubits, carve gate...
Translation: What is the law regarding the blessings of a non-Jew, whether he is a Torah scholar or not? Rabbi says: "If he blesses with enthusiasm, he is a Torah scholar, and if n...
Beruria, the brilliant, sharp-tongued wife of Rabbi Meir, encountered Rabbi Yose HaGelili on the road one day. He asked her a simple question, but he asked it in five words when th...
Rebuke not the wicked lest you make an enemy. Having thus spent all his money he went to another town. There a man asked a scribe to write a petition, offer- ding a small coin. The...
A small boy was traveling in a boat along the coast when the prophet Elijah appeared to him. Elijah was famous for wandering the world in disguise, testing Jews, delivering message...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Yossi had a tenant who tended his vineyard. Every Friday, the man brought a basket of grapes to the Rabbi’s door — the standard portion owed to the la...
Adam wakes up and speaks. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 2:23) gives him a line with an unusual opening: "This time, and not again, is woman created from man." The Targumist is...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 16:5) lets Sarah speak at length, and the speech is a small masterpiece of grief, accusation, and memory. It begins quietly, my affliction is fro...
The closing line of Isaac's blessing, as the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it, reaches beyond Jacob and names two future figures by name. "Let them who curse thee, my son, be accu...
"You have made my name to go forth as evil among the inhabitants of the land, among the Kenaanites and Phezerites. And I am a people of small number, and they will gather together ...
The ancestral blessings were not universally loved. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan includes a striking aside in Joseph's final benediction. "The blessings of thy father be added to the ble...
Three months. That is how long a mother can pretend her baby does not cry. "But she could conceal him no longer, for the Mizraee had become aware of him. And she took an ark of pap...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the strangest laws in the Torah. "If thou wilt make an altar of stones unto My Name, thou shalt not build them sculptured; for if thou l...
The harvest is in. The grapes are crushed. The wine has just begun to settle in its jars. The farmer stands over his abundance and feels the old pull of hesitation. Perhaps next we...
This single verse holds two of the most important laws in Jewish life. And the Targum layers them tightly together. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:19) says: The first ...
Most translations of (Exodus 28:12) call the shoulder-stones a memorial, and leave the word undefined. A memorial of what? The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills the silence. The gems ar...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not soften the law. It specifies the method: "Whoso doeth work upon the Sabbath, dying he shall die, by the casting of stones" (Exodus 31:15). Stoning, ...
Where did the onyx stones for the high priest's ephod come from? The Torah does not say. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:27) tells one of the strangest mineral-supply stor...
When Betzalel finished the choshen, the breastplate of judgment, he did not simply sew a garment. He built a map of the world the House of Israel carries on its heart. In Targum Ps...
Take, for instance, the ritual of the sotah, the suspected adulteress, described in the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar). It’s… complicated. The priest writes curses on a scroll and then...
Consider the strange and solemn ritual described in the Book of Numbers, chapter 5, concerning a woman suspected of infidelity. It’s a fascinating, and frankly unsettling, glimpse ...
The verse in question, (Numbers 6:15), describes the offerings brought by a Nazirite upon completing their term: “And a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of high quality flour mix...
A reader can imagine everyone just carrying on, oblivious, but Jewish tradition suggests otherwise. The Torah tells us, "Noah was a righteous man [ish]" (Genesis 6:9). But Bereshit...
Rabbi Ḥanina, quoting Rabbi Pinḥas, makes a striking observation in Bereshit Rabbah. He points out that the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – are mentioned eighteen times in...
The verse says, "He raised his voice in weeping…. And his brothers could not answer him" (Genesis 45:2-3). It's a powerful moment! But what does it really mean? Well, Abba Kohen (a...
The story of Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, is a powerful illustration of just that – a tale of lost potential, impulsive actions, and the consequences that ripple through generations....
It’s baked right into Jewish tradition. to a fascinating idea from Devarim Rabbah, a collection of homiletic interpretations of the Book of Deuteronomy. The very first verse of Deu...
The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet as it's known in Hebrew, wrestles with these very questions. And one particular verse, (Ecclesiastes 3:5), has sparked some fascinating interpr...
It’s a book known for its wisdom, but sometimes couched in rather…opaque language. Take this verse from (Ecclesiastes 10:9): "One who transports stones will be saddened by them; an...
