563 related texts · 17 related myths · Page 2 of 12
The familiar version gives us the broad strokes: Pharaoh, Moses, plagues, freedom. But the details… oh, the details are where things get truly wild. The Torah recounts the ten plag...
The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, forcing them to build their cities, to serve their every whim. But the oppression wasn't just physical; it was spiritual too. One of the firs...
It’s the sheer, focused intensity of it all. And at the heart of that intensity? The ten plagues. Why not five? Or twenty? The answer, like so much in Jewish tradition, is layered ...
Moses is pleading with Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery, and things are… not going well. Three plagues have already hit Egypt, each one worse than the last. You'd thi...
Legends of the Jews turns to Dead Animals from the Plague of Flies Vanished Miraculously. Well, according to Legends of the Jews, Ginzberg's masterful retelling of rabbinic traditi...
The Torah itself describes the plague of boils in stark terms (Exodus 9:8-12). But the Legends of the Jews, that magnificent collection of rabbinic lore compiled by Louis Ginzberg,...
Because true magic, the kind wielded by prophets and emanating from the Divine, is something else entirely. Consider the story of the Egyptian magicians and their fateful encounter...
Legends of the Jews turns to God's Mercy Shone Through Even in the Plague of Hail. The fourth plague, hail, is a great example. God, in His fury, is about to unleash a devastating ...
Pharaoh, true to Moses's prediction, immediately reneged on his promise to let the Israelites go. What did Moses do? He didn't waste a second. He promptly announced the eighth plag...
The familiar picture has them as swift, dramatic events, but the stories tell a different tale, one of drawn-out suffering, and, yes, even a bit of divine trickery. It wasn't just ...
Really trapped. Centuries of slavery, your identity almost erased. Then, a glimmer of hope appears: MOSES. But even after plagues and miracles, freedom seems just out of reach. Wha...
Because, according to some traditions, even the ten plagues weren't enough to soften the hearts of the Egyptians. The oppression of the Hebrews continued relentlessly, right up to ...
In Legends of the Jews, it all goes back to the Golden Calf. Imagine, if you will, a world where every single Israelite was a priest, a direct conduit to God. A nation of holy peop...
Right there, in front of everyone, Aaron and his sons were chosen, set apart for the holy task of serving as priests. Immediately following this ceremony, Aaron and his sons went i...
The story of Korah's rebellion against Moses is a classic tale of ambition gone awry, but according to some traditions, it all started with a bad hair day – literally. The Zohar, t...
We all remember his story. The guy who challenged Moses’ leadership, leading a revolt that ended with the earth swallowing him and his followers whole (Numbers 16). But what happen...
Six hundred chariots. Fifty thousand horsemen. Two hundred thousand infantry. That was the army Pharaoh sent racing after the Hebrews barely three days after letting them go. And h...
This passage, specifically from Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 62, plays with the concept of terumah (תרומה), the offering given to the priests. It suggests that the portion of ...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Va'era with a question about the nature of prophecy. God tells Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jac...
When God announces the final plague, He uses a word that looks simple at first, but carries layers of meaning: "And I shall pass through the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:12). The Hebr...
Rabbi Yossi raises a startling possibility about the ten plagues. The destruction at the Red Sea, he argues, was not a separate event from the plagues in Egypt, it happened simulta...
The Song at the Sea praises God not only for His power but for His patience. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael highlights a detail that the Israelites themselves recognized as they san...
You inclined Your right hand, the earth swallowed them up." An analogy: A renegade stands and blasphemes behind the king's palace: If I find the king's son, I will seize him and sl...
The familiar version gives us the highlights – the Nile turning to blood, swarms of locusts, darkness… But the details, the why and how, are often richer and stranger than we remem...
"His name is in their words." What a powerful opening! Rabbi Yudan bar Rabbi Simon suggests something quite striking: the plagues weren't just external events, but were written dir...
The Torah tells us about the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn in Egypt, and the Exodus that followed. But the details… they’re fascinating. Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai, a toweri...
That's kind of what went down between Moses and the Egyptian magicians, according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating early medieval text that explores biblical narratives. re...
Not just any hand, but the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He. Rabbi Ishmael, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (Chapter 48), unveils a fascinating idea: each finger on God's right hand i...
We all do sometimes! a fascinating little corner of Jewish law from Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrashim (rabbinic interpretive commentary) (interpretations) on the Book...
In the Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, Rabbi Yehudah gives us a fascinating mnemonic device for remembering the ten...
Why was Pharaoh's daughter in the river that morning? The Hebrew says simply: "to bathe." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:5) has a different answer. And it is startling. "A...
Pharaoh has begged. Now Moses gives him an extraordinary gift: pick the hour. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:5) renders the offer with unmistakable dignity to Pharaoh's office...
When God told Moses to take a census of Israel, the command came wrapped in a warning that Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes explicit: every man must give a ransom for his soul when he ...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to If Aaron's Grandsons Had Sons the Priesthood Would Differ. The text gets a bit more complex, focusing on the phrase "al penei Aaron, their father," which l...
It all starts in (Numbers 16:1): “Koraḥ, son of Yitzhar son of Kehat son of Levi, and Datan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, and On, son of Pelet, sons of Reuben, took…” Took what, you a...
His story, recounted in Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah) 18, is a wild ride of ambition, rebellion, and some seriously bad consequences. So, "Korah took…" That's how the story begi...
The ancient Rabbis certainly thought so, and they found wisdom in the story of KORAH's rebellion against Moses. The text in Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah), a classical Rabbinic i...
Counting, specifically, the census in the Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew. We find ourselves in Numbers 26, right after a devastating plague. God tells Moses and Elazar, the so...
A reader can see them as just divine punishment, but Jewish tradition often digs deeper, searching for layers of meaning. one fascinating idea from Shemot Rabbah, a classic collect...
The Torah tells us, "The magicians of Egypt did so with their spells; and Pharaoh's heart hardened, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had spoken” (Exodus 7:22). But what does "...
The Torah isn't always explicit about timing, and sometimes, a seemingly simple phrase can unlock a whole world of debate. Take (Exodus 7:25): "Seven days were completed, after the...
Shemot Rabbah turns to The Deeper Meaning Behind the Plague of Frogs. Here, in Shemot Rabbah 10, the rabbis are unpacking the verse "Behold, I will smite [nogef]". Now, nogef can m...
The scene: Moses is tasked with confronting Pharaoh yet again. God tells Moses, "Rise early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say to him: So said the Lord, God of the H...
It wasn't just about remembering the events, but about understanding the deeper meaning behind them. The Torah tells us, "And so that you will relate in the ears of your son, and o...
That agonizing tease of liberation is a feeling the Israelites knew all too well as they stood on the brink of freedom from Egypt. We find ourselves in the thick of it in (Exodus 1...
A reader can see them as simply divine punishments, but Jewish tradition often delves deeper, searching for layers of meaning and nuance. the story turns to the plague of darkness,...
Rabbi Yitzchak, in Shir HaShirim Rabbah 6, offers a fascinating, if unsettling, interpretation of the events following the plague that killed twenty-four thousand Israelites. This ...
Ever catch a whiff of something amazing and wonder, "What is that?" Our senses are powerful doorways to memory and meaning. And in ancient Jewish tradition, few things were as powe...
