434 related texts · 4 related myths · Page 8 of 10
(2) (Fol. 3b) R. Abahu said: "Cyrus was a worthy king, and therefore were his royal years counted in accordance with those of the kings of Israel [beginning with Nissan]." R. Josep...
An heathen said to R. Johanan b. Zakkai: “The ceremonies of the red heifer look like witchcraft/' He replied: “What are you doing against demoniac possession?’’— “Herbs and fumigat...
A pious man did strange things, i. e., placed a young girl in his bed, &c., but was not suspected of any wrong by his disciples who found afterwards that they were justified in not...
There was a man who owned a prosperous vineyard and a cellar full of casks, fine oil and rich wine, the fruits of years of careful labor. He was wealthy by any measure. But he had ...
The prophet Elijah, who never died but ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire, appeared to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, one of the greatest sages of the third century, and offered him s...
R. Johanan was one of the last beautiful men of Jerusalem. Rish Lakish, a robber, surprised him in the bath thinking him to be a woman. He was converted to study on the promise of ...
V. 1. A man on his deathbed commanded his son to cast bread upon the waters. He did it daily and one fish caught it regularly and grew very big and persecuted the other fishes. The...
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 ...
Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years (Judges 9:22). Aggadat Bereshit uses this strange opening, about a king in the book of Judges, to arrive at the first murder. The path r...
The opening verse of Numbers 7 says a single thing twice. Moses "anointed the Tabernacle and sanctified it," and then the verse adds, "and he anointed them and sanctified them." Wh...
When the chieftains of Israel rolled up to the Tabernacle with six covered wagons, the Torah uses a strange word for those wagons, tzav. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:8 turns the word un...
During the nights of Sukkot, the Second Temple in Jerusalem lit up like nothing the world had ever seen. In the Court of the Women stood four giant golden lamp-stands, each crowned...
During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the storehouses had been burned by Jewish zealots to force the city to fight. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, walking through the streets a...
Open the book of Kings and read: And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem ...
A rich man, old and childless, prayed for years for a son. In his advanced age God granted him one. He named the boy Saul, after the first king of Israel, and lavished everything o...
The book of Kings rarely spares a good word for King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel (reigned c. 874 to 853 BCE). He built a temple to Baal in Samaria, married Jezebel, and ...
Rabbi Yehoshua, the son of Korcha, heard the story from an old man of Jerusalem who had lived through the Babylonian destruction. In the valley below the city, Nebuzaradan, captain...
A lame Jew in a pagan city heard a rumor about a local idol. The idol, people said, had been healing lame people. Those who slept in its temple overnight woke with their legs strai...
A wicked man lay on his deathbed. He had lived a long life of greed. He had never given charity. He had never sent food to a poor neighbor. His door had remained closed against eve...
A Tzeduki, a Sadducee, member of the party that rejected the Oral Torah, once came to Rabbi Abhu with a question meant to sting. "Your God is a priest," he said, "for it is written...
The midrashic retelling of the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE preserves an image that belongs to nightmares. The high priest stood in the burning courts of the Beit HaM...
When Nebuchadnezzar led Israel into the Babylonian captivity, he demanded that the Levites, the Temple singers, perform the Songs of Zion for his court. The Levites had spent their...
A pagan once approached Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, the sage who had smuggled himself out of besieged Jerusalem inside a coffin and refounded Judaism at Yavneh. And said bluntly, "...
Rav Huna, the third-century head of the Babylonian academy at Sura, owned a vineyard and hired laborers to work it. One harvest day he refused to share wine with the men who were w...
The Second Temple had a section called the Ezrat Nashim, the Court of Women, a gallery where women could gather for the great ceremonies while men stood on the lower floor. During ...
When Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Talmud tells us, he did not content himself with fire and slaughter. He stripped the Temple of its sacred vessels, wrapped them in the vei...
Every year, in the dark weeks of winter, Jewish homes kindle flames for eight nights — the Chag HaChanukah, the Feast of Dedication. The festival commemorates the purifying o...
There were fifteen steps in the Temple that led down from the Court of Israel to the Court of the Women. The rabbis said they matched the fifteen Shir HaMa’alot, the Songs of...
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...
Jacob set a pillar and poured oil on it (Genesis 28:22). Then he made a promise about what that pillar would become. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan goes further than the plain verse. T...
"Put away the idols of the peoples which are among you, which you took from the temple of Shekem, and purify you from the uncleannesses of the slain whom you have, and change your ...
Jacob does not shame his firstborn without also showing him a door. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens (Genesis 49:4) with a startling image: "I will liken thee to a little garden in the...
Mid-storm, with hail hammering the roof of the palace and fire leaping through the ice, Pharaoh finally says the words. "He said to them, This time I have sinned. I know that the L...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the simple altar law a mystical interior. "An altar of earth ye shall make to My Name, and sacrifice upon it thy burnt offerings and thy sanctified...
When the Holy One commanded Israel to contribute materials for the Mishkan, the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the instruction could have been simple taxation. Every household owes ...
Once the anointing oil had been compounded and the vessels of the sanctuary had been touched with it, they were no longer ordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes what happened t...
If the anointing oil was for people and vessels, the incense was for the air itself. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the command to Moses: take spices, balsam, onycha, galbanum. A...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:28) continues the miraculous supply chain it began in the previous verse. The clouds of heaven returned, and went to the garden of Eden, and to...
When the Tabernacle stood finished in the wilderness and every board was raised into place, the Holy One turned Moses's attention from the walls to the men who would serve inside t...
The altar of burnt offering was the first thing anyone saw on approaching the Tabernacle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:29) places it exactly there, at the gate, before the ...
It's almost like a cosmic nudge, inviting us to dig a little deeper. Consider the juxtaposition of the laws concerning lepers right before the section detailing the duties of the L...
Especially when we explore the curious case of the sotah – the suspected adulteress – in Numbers chapter 5. It’s a wild ride, full of ritual, suspicion, and a whole lot of barley f...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to The Sotah Ritual and What It Reveals About Betrayal. It gets even more intriguing. "And from the dirt…" Why, the Torah asks, bring dirt – afar in Hebrew – ...
A fascinating, and frankly, rather unsettling passage from Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers. It unpacks the ritual for a woman accused of ...
The verse sets the scene: "The man shall bring his wife to the priest, and he shall bring her offering on her behalf, one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour; he shall not pour oil u...
"He shall dedicate to the Lord the days of his naziriteship" (Numbers 6:9). But it immediately sparks a question: how does the guilt offering (asham) associated with the Nazirite v...
The verse in question, (Numbers 6:15), describes the offerings brought by a Nazirite upon completing their term: “And a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of high quality flour mix...
That image, that feeling, is right at the heart of Psalm 91, and it takes center stage in a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 12. The verse "He who dwells in the shelter of ...
