12,014 related texts · Page 216 of 251
It paints a vivid picture of a king trying to undo the damage caused by his own misjudgment. The edict, as recounted, begins with Ahasuerus addressing "all the inhabitants of water...
And his response? A powerful and passionate defense of the Jewish people, a work we know as Against Apion. Now, the title Against Apion is a bit misleading, at least for this first...
It was a matter of utmost importance, a sacred duty meticulously observed. Josephus, in his work Against Apion, gives us a fascinating glimpse into this world. He explains that our...
That’s precisely where Josephus found himself. Josephus, a name that echoes through the ages. He was a Jewish leader and scholar who lived in the first century CE, a time of immens...
It turns out, they often are. And that's precisely what Flavius Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, points out in his work, Against Apion. He's making a case for the anti...
He’s wading into a historical debate, and it's more tangled than you might think. Josephus brings up Berosus, a Babylonian priest and historian, who wrote a Chaldean History. Beros...
It's easy to think of ourselves as existing in a bubble, separate from the larger currents of history. But the truth is, we were always part of the conversation, even if sometimes ...
He's responding to the claims of a writer named Apion, who seems to have a real bone to pick with the Jews of Alexandria. Apion, you see, is going after the Alexandrian Jews, criti...
Isaac was old and completely blind when he made the request that would fracture his family. He called his elder son Esau and told him to go hunt venison, prepare a meal, and return...
The angel struck first. That detail matters. At the river Jabboc, in the dead of night, with Jacob alone and his entire family already across the water, a divine being appeared and...
Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world by age thirty, but Josephus tells a story about the one city he did not need to take by force. When Alexander marched on Jerus...
When Trypho murdered his brother Jonathan, Simon, the last surviving son of Mattathias, took command. He was the eldest of the five brothers and the only one still alive. Josephus ...
The real power behind the Jewish throne in the first century BCE was not a Jew at all. Antipater, an Idumean whose family had converted to Judaism only a generation or two earlier,...
Herod was twenty-five years old when his father Antipater handed him the governorship of Galilee. His first act was to hunt down a band of raiders led by a man named Hezekiah who h...
Herod returned from Rome with a crown but no kingdom. Antigonus, backed by the Parthians, controlled Jerusalem. It took Herod three years of brutal campaigning to claim what the Ro...
The moment Herod was dead, the nation exploded. Three separate revolts broke out across the country before his sons could even settle who inherited what. According to Josephus in A...
Pontius Pilate moved his troops into Jerusalem at night and brought Roman military standards bearing Caesar's image into the holy city. Every previous governor had known better. Ac...
Agrippa did something no Jewish king had done in a generation: he made the people feel like they had a ruler who was actually one of them. According to Josephus in Antiquities XIX,...
Josephus ends his twenty-volume history of the Jewish people with a list, a boast, and a confession. The list is of every high priest from Aaron to the destruction of the Temple. T...
For centuries, mystics have explored this idea, and one of the most profound expressions of it is the concept of the ten sefirot (the divine emanations). What exactly are they? Ima...
Tzimtzum, a Hebrew word that means "contraction" or "self-limitation," is a profound idea in Jewish mysticism, particularly within the Kabbalistic tradition. It suggests that, befo...
Why the different guises? The Hasidic master Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev explains that God does not change, but rather it is those who perceive God who are different. God appears t...
Jewish tradition teaches that all of creation springs forth from the very Name of God, specifically the holiest Name: YHVH. The Zohar tells us that in the very beginning, God revea...
Jewish tradition has a powerful, even startling, way of expressing this idea, especially when talking about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It wasn't just bricks and mo...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of understanding that feeling: it's the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, in exile with us. Think of the Shekhinah as the feminine aspect of God, ...
Jewish tradition whispers of such a presence: the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה) is often described as the feminine aspect of God, a divine presence tha...
Jewish tradition suggests you might be right, especially when it comes to prophecy. Think of it this way: imagine a vast, boundless ocean of light, a pure, radiant holiness residin...
Some stories tell us it all started with a division. A grand sorting. According to tradition, when God created the world, it wasn't a uniform, homogenous blob. No, no. It was divid...
Jewish mystical tradition grapples with this very question, offering a powerful, and somewhat unsettling, origin story. It's a story of creation through destruction, a cosmic recyc...
For the Jewish people, tradition answers with a resounding name: Michael. But it's not always a simple story of unwavering support. Our relationship with Michael, the archangel, is...
The Jewish mystical tradition, particularly within Hasidism, grapples with this idea constantly, often personifying temptation in the figure of Lilith. There's a tale told about Ra...
Vital, as recounted in Sefer ha-Hezyonot, dreamed of a very unusual Simhat Torah, the joyous holiday that celebrates the completion of the annual Torah reading cycle. Imagine this:...
You might be surprised. It’s not just about commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. According to some mystical traditions, Shavuot (the Festival of Weeks) is actually...
These aren't just any years; they're cosmic Shemittot. The word Shemittah might sound familiar – it's the same word used for the sabbatical year, when fields lie fallow, a time of ...
It's more than just a day off. It's a portal, a moment when the entire cosmos shifts. According to ancient wisdom, Shabbat (the Sabbath) isn't just about our rest, it's about the u...
Jewish mystical tradition paints a breathtaking picture of the Sabbath – not just as a day of rest, but as a sacred marriage, a cosmic coronation, a weekly reunion between God and…...
The Zohar Hadash, in Yitro 37b, tells us that Jacob owned not one, but three incredibly significant books. Imagine the weight of that! These weren't just any scrolls; they were bel...
Jewish tradition often speaks of a profound connection between the heavens and the earth – “as above, so below,” as the Kabbalists say. But what happens when tragedy strikes here? ...
This one comes to us from a letter written in the fall of 1665 by Nathan of Gaza, the prophet of Shabbat (the Sabbath)ai Zevi, a figure who stirred up messianic fervor like few oth...
Maybe that’s because the rainbow we see today isn’t the rainbow of the Messiah. Not yet, anyway. : the rainbow we know is a promise, a beautiful one, certainly. It's a reminder of ...
Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, often grapples with these very questions. And one of the most important figures in 20th-century Kabbalah, Baal HaSulam (Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag), gave ...
It's all about desire, and where we choose to direct it. See, according to Baal HaSulam, in his introduction to the Zohar, our primary task in life is to acquire and expand our des...
A darkness, he called it. And it led him on a journey, one that would ultimately illuminate the most mystical and enigmatic of Jewish texts: the Zohar. But let's be honest, the Zoh...
It’s a question that Baal HaSulam, in his introduction to the Zohar, helps us unravel. He paints a picture of the divine structure, using the term Partzuf (divine "persona" or conf...
No, we're not talking about geopolitics here! We're talking about the inner landscape of the soul. The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam, in his introduction to the Zohar, that mystical...
Jewish tradition speaks of this very struggle. It’s not just about good versus evil in some abstract way, but about the constant balancing act we each perform within ourselves, and...
Yet, that’s precisely what the Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, suggests. Specifically, there's a powerful statement in Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar (at the end of Ti...
We often think of the Torah as a set of rules and stories. But what if I told you that those stories and rules are just the tip of the iceberg? The great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, w...
