434 related texts · 4 related myths · Page 3 of 10
The tribe of Asher received its inheritance in a strip of land along the northern coast of the Land of Israel, and the blessing that Moses gave them proved spectacularly true: "Let...
A mother had several sons, and the older brothers murdered the youngest. It was a killing born of jealousy, the kind of fratricidal violence that echoes the very first murder in th...
Rabbi Meir once stayed at an inn whose keeper was a wicked man. The Talmud and Midrash (Midrash HaGadol, Genesis) record what happened when the innkeeper's true nature was revealed...
When the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem and stormed the Temple, they found something in the courtyard that stopped them cold. A pool of blood. Bubbling. Boiling. Churn...
King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, was once brought a legal case so subtle that its resolution required the full depth of his legendary understanding. The dispute centere...
The story of Solomon and the boiled egg appears in multiple collections, each version adding new details to the king's legendary wisdom. In this telling, drawn from German and Jewi...
In the generation after the Second Temple was destroyed, some men claimed to be descendants of the priestly lines and demanded the privileges of kohanim, including the right to eat...
In the time of King David (who reigned c. 1010 to 970 BCE) there were three years of famine across the land of Israel. A poor man with nine sons and daughters went without food for...
For seven years after the destruction of the First Temple, the Sages say, the nations of the world cultivated their vineyards with no other manure than the blood of Israel. The soi...
An apostate, a Jew who had abandoned his people, invented a blood libel and decided to prove it. He found a bird, slaughtered it, drained its blood into a small bottle, and then sl...
The servants of King David were sitting together eating eggs. One of them finished his egg while the others were still eating theirs, and he felt embarrassed to be sitting empty-ha...
When Moses blessed the tribe of Asher at the end of his life, he said, "Let him dip his foot in oil" (Deuteronomy 33:24). The rabbis of the Talmud took the blessing literally. Ashe...
A man in a certain Jewish town had produced a good harvest. His cellar filled with casks of oil pressed from his olives and wine fermented from his grapes. The harvest was private....
Gaster preserves, as exemplum No. 194, a tiny, terrible story, almost a folk horror, about a mother whose son was murdered by his own brothers. She gathered the blood of her son af...
Having refused the king of Sedom's gift, Abraham was not done speaking. One refusal can become self-righteousness if you are not careful. So in the very next breath, according to T...
The mercy arrives as quickly as the warning. The Holy One says to Moses: Return thy hand into thy bosom, Aitaph in the Aramaic. And when Moses withdraws it, it had become clean as ...
It happened exactly as the Lord said. Moses and Aaron took the furnace ash in their hands, walked out to meet Pharaoh, and Moses flung the ash skyward. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan r...
One reason the first Passover feels archaic to modern readers is that it was archaic even to the people eating it. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:9) piles up the restrictions...
The tool that saved Israel was the humblest plant in the garden. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:22) says that each household took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the lamb's b...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:23) gives us the first explicit teaching of Sabbath cookery in the Torah, and the Targumist relays it with a domestic precision that would be a...
Our sages teach that each word carries a world of meaning. Take the word tzav (צו), for instance. What does it really mean when God commands? In the beginning of Parashat Tzav, in ...
It's a powerful and surprisingly relevant text for our times. " But the Rabbis, in their insightful way, interpret this verse as a reference to exile. Why? Because, they argue, the...
Okay, quick recap: a Nazirite (Nazir in Hebrew) takes a special vow to abstain from wine, cutting their hair, and contact with the dead. When that period ends, there's a whole ritu...
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...
Our sages grappled with these questions ages ago, and in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, they offer some pretty striking analogies. A king. He...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Jacob Anoints the Stone Pillar with Heavenly Oil. We find ourselves in (Genesis 28:18). Jacob, after his famous dream of the ladder stretching to heaven, w...
The rabbinic commentary on it, Kohelet Rabbah, digs even deeper. " (Ecclesiastes 3:9). It's a question King Solomon, traditionally believed to be the author of Ecclesiastes, poses....
Sometimes, the explanations seem… unexpected, even poetic. to a passage from Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Ecclesiastes, where we explore ...
It seems Kohelet Rabbah, the collection of rabbinic commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes, thought so too. It uses that very image – "Dead flies spoil and froth a perfumer's oil" ...
The verse in (Exodus 9:10) tells us, "They took soot of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it heavenward; and it became boils erupting into blisters upon man an...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. to a fascinating interpretation from Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic homilies on the Book of Exodus. It all begins with a seemingly simple...
We see it used for anointing, for lighting, for cooking. but what's the deeper symbolism? to a fascinating exploration from Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpret...
It all starts with a rather clinical verse: "A man, if he will have on the skin of his flesh a spot, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it will become a mark of leprosy on the skin o...
The verse in question, from (Leviticus 14:4), describes a ritual for purifying someone who has been healed from a skin disease: “The priest shall command, and one shall take for th...
A king, a ruler of flesh and blood. What powers does he wield? He can exile his subjects, throw them into prison, banish them from his kingdom. But is he alone in these actions? In...
Rabbi Ḥiyya, in Vayikra Rabbah 31, makes a point of stressing that it's specifically olive oil that’s important. Not sesame, walnut, turnip, or almond, but "olive oil from your oli...
The ancient sages grappled with this very idea. They saw two paths to wisdom, two types of people who approached the divine. And Philo, that brilliant Jewish philosopher from Alexa...
Pure olive oil beaten for the light (Exod. 27:20). You find that a person standing in the dark can observe what is transpiring in a lighted place. However, anyone standing in a lig...
(Lev. 12:6:) “And when the days of her purification are fulfilled [for either a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering….]” Why does sh...
(Lev. 22:27) “When a bull or a sheep or a goat.” R. Jacob bar Zavday in the name of R. Abbahu opened [his discourse] (with Ezek. 29:16), “And it shall no more be a source of satisf...
It's a story of atonement, of divine presence, and of a relationship between God and the Jewish people that’s been unfolding for millennia. Think back to the Day of Atonement. Imag...
Legends of the Jews turns to Naphtali's Offerings Honor the Patriarchs and Torah. Then comes a silver bowl, used for sprinkling blood. Its weight? Seventy shekels. Who lived to sev...
All sorts of momentous events piled up on a single day. This was the very day the Israelites crossed the Jordan River. Can you picture it? After forty years of wandering, they fina...
Sometimes, even the most extraordinary events can bring unexpected anxieties. Take the story of those brought back from the dead – a true gift. Yet, according to Legends of the Jew...
A reader can imagine them through our own lens, colored by sacred texts and centuries of tradition. But what did the rest of the world see? In his writings, Josephus cites Cherilus...
(Exodus 20:21) "And you shall slaughter thereon": alongside it (i.e., alongside the top). You say "alongside it, but perhaps it is to be understood literally, i.e., "upon it"? And ...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, dives right into this with the verse, "Be angry, but do not sin" (Psalm 4:5). It’s a provocative idea, isn’...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer turns to Joshua — The Ark of the Covenant. The story, as we find it in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, chapter 38, begins with Joshua in anguish. He tears his clothe...
