12,014 related texts · Page 91 of 251
Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta was invited to a brit milah — the circumcision ceremony of a newborn child. He came, he prayed, and through the power of his prayer, the life of the infant...
In time of drought the sages sent to Abba Hilkiah to pray for rain. They found him digging in the field and he did not reply to their greeting. In the evening, returning home, the ...
The sages taught that ten kings have ruled — or will rule — over the entire world. The list reads like a history of power itself, stretching from the beginning of time to its end. ...
The Romans had issued evil decrees against the Jewish people — banning Torah study, forbidding circumcision, outlawing the observance of the Sabbath. The sages were desperate. Some...
The destruction of Jerusalem did not end when the Temple burned. In the years that followed, the Romans hunted down the children of the sages, enslaving some, executing others, sca...
A man grew tired of his wealthy wife and plotted to divorce her through deceit. He devised a scheme: he would publicly accuse her of unfaithfulness, using his own best friend as th...
For thirteen years, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai and his son Rabbi Elazar hid in a cave, fugitives from the Roman Empire. The Talmud (Shabbat 33b) records how they survived and what happ...
The sages of the Talmud debated a question that still echoes through the ages: at what age may a child be considered ready for marriage? The discussion in Tractate Niddah (45a) pre...
A group of pagan astrologers — men who read the stars and claimed to know the future — once came before a Jewish court. They had traveled from distant lands, driven by a question t...
Bar Kappara was walking along the seashore when he encountered the survivors of a shipwreck — strangers, soaked and shivering, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had...
When Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan to scout the territory before the Israelite invasion, ten of them came back terrified. "We saw giants there," they reported. "T...
Abraham ibn Ezra and Yehuda Halevi were two of the greatest Jewish minds of medieval Spain — but their partnership was as unlikely as it was legendary. Ibn Ezra was a wandering poe...
In the distant lands of Persia, where fire altars burned day and night in honor of the elements, the Jewish communities faced a peculiar danger that was not from human persecutors ...
Name of the prince of demons. The meaning of the name and the identity of the two forms here given are still in dispute. Asmodeus first appears in the Book of Tobit. According to T...
The evil eye is a supposed power of bewitching or harming by spiteful looks, attributed to certain persons as a natural endowment. This belief was widespread among ancient civiliza...
God looked down at the world before the flood and saw something He hadn't seen since the days of Adam — a civilization that had talked itself into impunity. The wicked had done the...
Three days after his circumcision, Abraham sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day — sore, exhausted, ninety-nine years old. And God appeared to him (Genesis 18:1). ...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau (Genesis 32:4). The Hebrew word is malachim — messengers, angels. The midrash says this literally: Jacob sent actual angels. He had ...
The vision of Obadiah — the shortest prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible — is entirely about the punishment of Edom. Rabbi Berachiah asked: why did God choose Obadiah specifically f...
"Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?" (Malachi 2:10). Judah approaches Joseph — who is not yet revealed as his brother — and identifies his family: "We, your twe...
"I will assemble Jacob, all of you; I will bring together the remnant of Israel" (Micah 2:12). The end of Aggadat Bereshit's prophetic arc arrives here: not the death of Jacob, not...
Jewish tradition, particularly in esoteric texts, grapples with this very question. Imagine a cosmic courtroom, a beth din, in the time to come. God, seated on His Throne of Justic...
The sages of the Talmud grappled with this very emotion, particularly in the context of marriage and fidelity. And surprisingly, the Torah has a lot to say about it. to an intrigui...
It all starts with the verse: “Moses took the carts and the bulls, and gave them to the Levites” (Numbers 7:6). Simple enough. But the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) ne...
We're good at selective hearing. Well, Jewish tradition suggests this happened big time with the story of the spies sent to scout the land of Canaan. Our story comes from Bamidbar ...
Day and night, light and dark... it’s so fundamental. But have you considered it as a constant song, a perpetual praise to the One who created it all? The verse in (Psalms 74:16), ...
We often hear about its benefits, but Jewish tradition also explores its potential pitfalls, especially when it comes to spiritual well-being. Rabbi Elazar, commenting on the verse...
We all know the basic plot: humanity, united and speaking one language, decides to build a tower so tall it reaches the heavens. God, not thrilled with this ambition, scatters them...
We all know the basic story: humanity, unified and speaking a single language, decides to build a tower reaching the heavens. God, not thrilled with this display of hubris, scatter...
Jewish tradition is rich with insights into these liminal spaces, and one passage in Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah) 50, really caught my attention. It's all about Lot's escape fr...
It wasn't just about seeing the future; it was about holding life and death in their hands. to a fascinating little story from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretat...
That’s a feeling that echoes through the story of Dinah in the Book of Genesis, and it explodes with dramatic force in the rabbinic interpretations. Dinah, daughter of Leah, ventur...
The story of Joseph in Egypt is a classic tale of rags to riches, but the Rabbis see a deeper, more poetic justice at play. to a fascinating interpretation from Bereshit Rabbah 90,...
The ones that make you think, "Wait, how did that happen?" to a fascinating little corner of the Joseph story, found in Bereshit Rabbah, a compilation of rabbinic interpretations o...
The Torah portion of Vayigash gives us a glimpse into their complex relationship, and the Rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), particularly in Bereshit Rabbah ...
But it's also so much more. It’s a roadmap, a history book, a mystical text. And it's all wrapped up together, often needing a little… unpacking. That's where commentaries like Ber...
Today, we're diving into a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah), a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Specifically, we're l...
Take the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. We know Joseph, now a powerful Egyptian official, tests his brothers after years of separation. He orders his steward to fill th...
Kohelet Rabbah, a fascinating collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Ecclesiastes, delves into the verse "All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full; t...
Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet as it's known in Hebrew, tackles this very feeling. "For like the crackling of brambles under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool; this, too, is vanity...
Today, we’re diving into a story from Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Ecclesiastes, where we see just such a situation unfold. The story cen...
It all starts with the verse, "May your garments be white at all times, and may the oil on your head not be lacking" (Ecclesiastes 9:8). Now, what does that even mean? Is it litera...
And the rabbis of old, in their infinite wisdom, dove deep into its poetic verses, finding layers of meaning we might miss today. We're looking at Kohelet Rabbah, a rabbinic commen...
The verse says, "The Lord said to Moses in Midyan: Go, return to Egypt; as all the men who sought your life are dead" (Exodus 4:19). Simple enough. But the Rabbis of the Midrash (r...
It's not just a random trick. It's a direct confrontation, a symbolic smackdown, if you will. : Pharaoh saw himself as a god, the supreme ruler of Egypt, unshakeable and all-powerf...
The ancient Rabbis certainly thought about that feeling, and they found it in a surprising place: the showdown between Moses and Pharaoh's magicians. The verse in (Exodus 7:12) tel...
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 "...
