13,506 related texts · 43 related myths · Page 3 of 282
A roster of kings is usually a place where readers skim. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:2) will not let you skim. It reads the names. The Aramaic treats each royal name as a...
When Abraham asked for confirmation of the promise, the Lord did not give him a speech. He gave him a butchery list. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:9) preserves it exactly. ...
The Torah tells us that Abraham did. But the story, like so many in our tradition, is layered with meaning, prompting centuries of interpretation and debate. The scene is set in Ge...
The rabbis noticed a quiet escalation in the promises made to the patriarchs about the land. To Abraham, God said, “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in th...
In (Genesis 12:7) the covenant becomes architectural. The Lord appears to Abram, says To thy sons will I give this land, and Abram answers with stones. He builds an altar. Targum P...
Abram pitches his tent on a mountain east of Bethel, Ai on the other side, and the moment in (Genesis 12:8) almost passes without incident. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan catches the one d...
The verse in (Genesis 13:18) is the closing note of a long chapter. Abram pulls up his tent, moves south, and pitches it in the vale of Mamre at Hebron. He builds an altar. Targum ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:17) translates a forgotten geographical name into a vivid picture. The Hebrew Bible calls the location the Valley of Shaveh, which is the King...
Once the pieces were laid out, something ugly came down. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:11) calls it plainly: idolatrous peoples, like unclean birds, descending on the sacri...
The Torah says Jacob sent Joseph from the Valley of Hebron. The word valley, emek, also means depth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:14) pounces on the double meaning. Jacob ...
There are moments in the Torah where the sky seems to split open and a promise falls through. Chapter 15 of Genesis is one of them. In it, God binds Himself to Abraham with a coven...
After Sarah's death, Abraham took another wife named Keturah, said to be from the land of Canaan. And she bore him six sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuach. Tha...
Chapter 28 opens with a famine, a stark reminder of the challenges faced by our ancestors. Just as his father Abraham had done before him, Isaac considers going down to Egypt for r...
They'd already made one harrowing trip to Egypt for food during a devastating famine. But now, the meager supplies they brought back were gone. The little children were crying, beg...
Plagues, parting of the Red Sea, freedom! But the details…they’re wild. The scene: the Egyptians, fresh from the devastation of the tenth plague, practically shoving the Israelites...
Abraham and Sarah, pillars of faith and compassion, have journeyed to Egypt seeking refuge and sustenance for their people. But instead of welcome, they face peril. Sarah's unparal...
The story, as often happens, is richer and more nuanced than we might initially think. The Torah tells us that thirteen years after Ishmael's birth, God commanded Abraham to perfor...
It wasn't the battles with kings or the famine in the land that weighed heaviest on his heart. No, it was the separation from his son, Ishmael, that caused him the most profound gr...
It's often in those details that the real magic lies. Take Jacob, for example. We know he journeyed from Canaan to Egypt, a pivotal moment for his family and, ultimately, for the e...
Legends of the Jews turns to Israel Tries to Replace Moses and Return to Egypt. The people, as Ginzberg recounts, weren't just sad. They were furious. The dream of the Promised Lan...
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He didn't just release a nameless mass of people. He counted them. And according to Legends of the Jews, this census served a dual purpose...
Abraham didn't just go to Egypt to escape famine. According to Josephus, he went to debate the priests. When drought struck Canaan, Abraham heard that Egypt was prosperous and deci...
(Proverbs 23:5) speaks to this feeling, saying, "When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings." But what does this really mean? One fascinating...
Our story starts with Abraham. Remember when he learns that his nephew Lot has been captured? (Genesis 14:13) tells us, "And there came one who had escaped, and told Abram the Hebr...
The patriarch Abraham experienced just such a moment, according to the ancient text, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer. The scene: Abraham, fresh from his encounter with the divine, is a man ...
Rabbi Jochanan, a prominent figure in the Talmud, offers some striking insights here. He states that gentiles, or "heathens" as the text puts it, who choose to come to Israel and c...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer turns to Abraham Isaac and Jacob of Egypt. He tells us, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and often imaginative collection of stories and teachings, t...
Rabbi Zakai of She'av offers a beautiful insight. He imagines the Israelites asking God: "Master of the universe, everywhere else You call it the land of Canaan, but here, ‘the lan...
This teaching connects this to a verse from Isaiah (33:15): "He seals his ears from hearing of bloodshed." The idea is that a righteous person doesn't stand idly by when faced with...
Our journey begins in (Genesis 14:20): “And blessed is God, the Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. He gave him a tithe of everything.” This verse is about Abraha...
As we find in (Genesis 15:3), Abraham cries out, "Behold, to me You have not given offspring, and a member of my household is my heir." He's pouring out his heart, expressing his d...
How do you BECOME ready? Our exploration starts in Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Here, in section 49, we find a fascinat...
Take Ishmael, for example. (Genesis 25:12) starts out: "These are the descendants of Ishmael son of Abraham, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham." Okay, f...
Our ancestors certainly did. This week, Specifically, we'll be looking at the moment when Jacob, now known as Israel, sends his sons back to Egypt. Famine grips the land, and they ...
Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus, offers a fascinating perspective on this, likening the people of Israel to a vine. Rabbi Tanhuma bar ...
Shir HaShirim Rabbah, the commentary on the Song of Songs, and unpacking just such a verse. Get ready for a journey through noble lineage, the power of brit milah (circumcision), a...
Hannah vowed at Shiloh, if God gives her a son, she will give him back (1 Samuel 1:11). Rabbi Berachiah used this verse to address four theological objections that people raise aga...
A voice cries in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). The Aggadat Bereshit connects this voice, the heral...
(Genesis 17:13) in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan turns a one-way sacrament into a chain. He who is circumcised shall circumcise him, the one already inside the covenant brings the next on...
“I remember my song in the night; I meditate with my heart, and my spirit searches” (Psalms 77:7). Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon and Rabbi Aivu.58The text of the midrash (rabbinic i...
Aaron, acting on divine command, stretched out his hand, and bam! Every drop of water in Egypt transformed into blood. Not just the Nile, not just the rivers and streams, but even ...
"for there was no house where no one had died": R. Nathan said: Now were there not houses without first-born?, (The resolution:) If one lost a first-born, he would make an image of...
When the Israelites saw the Egyptian army bearing down on them and the Red Sea blocking their escape, the Torah says they "were exceedingly afraid." But what did they do with that ...
He came and revealed Himself to the sons of Ishmael and asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They: What is written in it? He: "You shall not steal." They: But this is the blessin...
"I will make my opinions widely known" (Job 36:3). God called Abraham from the east, "calling a bird of prey from the east, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11)....
Bamidbar Rabbah preserves a tender moment in the imagined inner life of the Holy One. When God decided to bless Abraham, He paused. “What shall I tell him?” the Holy On...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 12:3) performs one of its most characteristic moves, it drops the future straight into the past. The plain verse says, I will bless those who ble...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:20) preserves Shem-Malkizedek's blessing and the patriarch's response. Blessed be Eloha Ilaha, who hath made thine enemies as a shield which r...
