13,506 related texts · 43 related myths · Page 2 of 282
A reader can imagine them springing forth, fully formed, ready to face any challenge. But what about the times before the heroism, the moments of vulnerability, the struggles that ...
The voice came again. Twice it called his name: "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "It is I. Fear not, for I am before the worlds, a mighty God who has created the light of the world...
They walked together for forty days and forty nights. Abraham ate no bread and drank no water. His food was the sight of the angel beside him. His drink was Iaoel's speech. This wa...
The sun went down. Smoke rose from the ground like the smoke of a furnace (Genesis 15:17). The angels who held the portions of the sacrifice ascended from the top of the smoking fu...
"Do not be hasty with your words, and let your heart not rush to bring a matter before God" (Ecclesiastes 5:1). Jacob had said: "My way is hidden from the Lord." The rabbis found t...
They were promised descendants as numerous as the stars, yet years went by in the land of Canaan, barren and seemingly forgotten by destiny. The Torah tells us, “Sarai, Abram’s wif...
The Eternal Mighty One said: "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "Look down at the stars beneath your feet. Count them for me. Make known to me their number." Abraham looked down from...
R. Chanina b. Akiva says: "More beloved" was the seeing of our father Abraham than that of Moses. For Abraham was not caused to exert himself whereas Moses was. What is stated of A...
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 ruled...
When Nimrod hurled Abraham into the blazing furnace at Ur of the Chaldeans, the place whose very name, the Rabbis note, means fire, the angel Gabriel stood up in the heavenly court...
The plain verse in (Genesis 12:12) is a husband's anxious calculation: when the Egyptians see thee, they will say, This is his wife, and they will kill me, and thee they will keep ...
This is one of the most extraordinary passages in the entire Targum. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:13) takes a single Hebrew word, ha-palit, the fugitive who brought news t...
As the sun dipped low over the divided animals, a tardemah fell on Abraham, a deep, prophetic sleep. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:12) uses that sleep to show him the whole...
There is a detail in the Hebrew of (Genesis 16:2) that the Targum will not let pass quietly. Sarah sends her husband to her handmaid Hagar. The Hebrew says simply go in unto my mai...
The story of Lot is a fascinating example. We know him best, perhaps, for his narrow escape from the fiery destruction of Sodom. But did you know that his salvation wasn't just a s...
The phrase "until Dan" appears not only in Moses' vision but much earlier in the Torah, when Abraham "pursued them until Dan" (Genesis 14:14) during his rescue of his nephew Lot. T...
Sometimes, those hidden depths hold the most fascinating secrets. Take the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. The familiar version gives us the basics, but what about the detail...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:15) turns Abram's night raid into a double operation with a prophetic shadow. The Aramaic says Abram divided his forces in the night: a part w...
After Abraham routed the four kings and rescued his nephew Lot, the king of Sedom came out to meet him with an offer that looked generous and was actually a trap. Take the spoil, t...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Abraham Sends Hagar and Ishmael into the Desert. The verse tells us, "Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave them ...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Isaac Faces the Same Famine Abraham Once Endured. So, what does Bereshit Rabbah, a classical collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, have to say...
Sometimes, looking to other texts can give us a fuller picture. This passage from the Book of Jasher. It begins with a rumble of war. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, rallies his allies...
Legends of the Jews turns to The Canaanites Who Squatted on the Promised Land. It first appears that ABRAHAM, arriving later, would simply assert his claim. After all, God had prom...
When Alexander of Macedon conquered Egypt, a delegation of Egyptian nobles came before him with a centuries-old complaint against the Jews. They pointed to the book of Exodus itsel...
“In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Aḥashverosh, he had cast a pur, that is, the lot, before Haman for each day and for each month, to the tw...
His nephew, Lot, has just departed, choosing a different path, and perhaps a more materially prosperous one. Abram might be feeling a little…lost. Then, something incredible happen...
"And it came to pass, when Abram was come into Egypt" (Genesis 12:14). So the verse tells us, matter-of-factly. But where was Sarah? The midrash fills the silence. Abraham, knowing...
The verse is almost administrative. Abram leaves Haran at seventy-five. Lot goes with him. The Targum in (Genesis 12:4) does not embroider. And that restraint is the whole lesson. ...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 12:5) uses a strange phrase: the souls they had made in Haran. How does one make a soul? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan answers in a single word that opens a whole t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 12:11) offers one of the most quietly astonishing readings in the entire Aramaic paraphrase tradition. It explains how Abram can suddenly, after ...
Right after the terrifying vision of Gehinnom and the four kingdoms, the Lord sets a covenant. And Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:18) spells out the promise with an emphasis...
Before Jacob left Beersheba for Haran, Isaac did something that could not be undone. He transferred the blessing of Abraham, the promise of land, seed, and covenant, from father to...
The kisses Joseph gives his brothers are not only affection. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's reading, they are grief in advance. "And he kissed all his brethren, and wept over them, be...
It's right there in the Torah: "Abraham said to God: 'Would that Ishmael might live before You.'" (Genesis 17:18). Seems straightforward. But like so much in our tradition, there's...
Jubilees, considered scripture by some and an important historical text by others, paints a picture of Abraham's unwavering faith in the face of, let’s just say, a lot of challenge...
Scarcely had Abraham settled in Canaan when a devastating famine struck. Now, famines aren’t exactly rare in the grand scheme of things. In fact, the legends speak of ten famines a...
It wasn't a coincidence. See, the famine that struck during Abraham's time? It wasn’t just a random act of nature. According to Legends of the Jews, specifically volume one, this f...
You're not alone. Even Joseph, the powerful vizier of Egypt, had to navigate those tricky waters. The scene: Jacob, Joseph's father and the patriarch of the Israelite people, has j...
It might seem like a simple administrative task, but according to some fascinating Jewish traditions, there's a deeper, more spiritual reason behind it. The story goes that God com...
When God told Abraham, "Go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), He was deliberately vague. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this vagueness as a divine instructi...
Hagar's desperate wanderings with her son. "And she departed and wandered," the passage begins, referencing (Genesis 21:14). But Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer interprets "wandering" here ...
Take this passage from Sifrei Devarim, for example. It starts with the seemingly straightforward statement: "When the Most High caused nations to inherit…" But what does it really ...
When the Canaanite natives saw the Egyptian-Israelite procession mourning at the threshing floor of Atad, they did something startling. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records it. "They loo...
The Torah tells us, "Abram passed through the land to the place of Shekhem, until the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land" (Genesis 12:6). But there's more to ...
The picture in the vision swayed. From its left side, a heathen people emerged. They fell upon those on the right side, the people of Abraham's seed, and pillaged them. Men, women,...
A sigh from a Jewish person can repair what is broken in the world. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught this not as poetry but as metaphysics. The sigh, the deep exhalation of grief or...
Was Sarah truly barren? Genesis tells us plainly that she "had no children" (Gen. 16:1). But what if I told you that she gave birth in a way that defied conventional understanding?...
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing. God stopped them cold. According to Megillah 10b, He said: "My handiwork is drowning in the ...
