2,273 related texts · Page 23 of 48
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, dives deep into the unseen forces at play, and sometimes, it gets One passage, in Tikkunei Zohar 84, uses vivid i...
And the answer? Well, it's a bit…uncomfortable. The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later, and in some ways wilder, expansion on the core Zohar, tackles this very question hea...
(Exodus 12:1) "in the land of Egypt":(He spoke to them) outside the city. But perhaps in the city itself? (This cannot be, for it is written (Exodus 9:29) "When I leave the city" (...
On the night of the Exodus, God did not just strike the firstborn of Egypt. He also executed judgment on the gods of Egypt. And according to the Mekhilta, those judgments were not ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, probes the geographic scope of the tenth plague with meticulous care. The verse states: "And the Lord smote every firstborn in the la...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, pauses on a detail in the Exodus narrative that seems redundant: "And they asked of Egypt vessels of silver and vessels of gold and r...
(Exodus 14:4) "And I shall strengthen Pharaoh's heart": for it was divided, whether to pursue or not to pursue. "and I will be honored through (the downfall of) Pharaoh and all of ...
In the past, Pharaoh's servants said to him (Exodus 10:7) "How long will this one be a stumbling block to us?" and now (Ibid. 14:5) "What is this that we did in sending Israel away...
The Mekhilta identifies three separate places in the Torah where God explicitly commanded Israel never to return to Egypt. Three warnings — not one, not two, but three — each in a ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a remarkable teaching by Shimon of Kitron about why God split the Red Sea for Israel. The answer has nothing to do with Moses raising his st...
"The foe (Pharaoh) said": And he did not know what he was saying, viz. (Mishlei 16:1) "To a man are the musings of his heart, but to the L–rd is the meaning of the tongue." (He sai...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a dramatic speech attributed to God, addressed to the Egyptians at the moment of the Red Sea's destruction. The voice is that of a king — an...
God made a striking declaration to the Israelites at Sinai: "You have seen what I did to Egypt" (Exodus 19:4). The Mekhilta emphasizes that God was not asking the people to accept ...
Before God ever asked Israel to accept His kingship, He proved Himself through action. The Mekhilta lays out the sequence with deliberate precision, and the order matters. First, G...
The Mekhilta unpacks a subtle but powerful argument that God makes to Israel. The verse reads: "As the deeds of the land of Egypt in which you dwelt you shall not do" (Leviticus 18...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interpretations of the Psalms, offers a pretty powerful image to explain it. It starts with the question: "Why did the nations rage?" Th...
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" It's a raw, honest cry of frustration and bewilderment. But what if that feeling of distance isn't quite what it seems? The Midrash T...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers a fascinating glimpse into this divine-human "battle" during the Exodus. It's not just abou...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers some fascinating perspectives on this very question, particularly in its treatment of Psal...
And it's one the ancient rabbis explored deeply through their interpretations of the Book of Psalms, or Tehillim. to a fascinating passage from Midrash Tehillim, specifically on Ps...
The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, dives deep into this verse, unlocking layers of meaning and offering us a glimpse into the div...
We all know the highlights – the Nile turning to blood, swarms of locusts, darkness… But the details, the why and how, are often richer and stranger than we remember. Take the plag...
We find this drama vividly portrayed in Midrash Tehillim, specifically in its interpretation of Psalm 78. It's a moment dripping with irony. Moses, trying to help, warns Pharaoh to...
Psalm 80, a poignant plea for divine intervention, opens with a striking image: "Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, You Who leads Joseph like a flock." It's a cry for guidance, for protec...
That tension, that push-and-pull, it's something our ancestors wrestled with too. And wouldn't you know it, the ancient wisdom of the Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretati...
Like the calendar is just... off? Well, our ancestors in Egypt felt that way too. And it all ties into a fascinating, and often overlooked, concept: the Jewish calendar and the pra...
The ancient text Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and interpretations, suggests that there just might be. The text draws our attention to the fifth day. ...
The ancient Jewish sages understood that feeling intimately. They saw it reflected in the verses of Psalms, and wove those verses into tales of hope and resilience. It starts with ...
This particular passage, from Chapter 26, gives us a glimpse into Sarah's encounters with powerful rulers and the surprising twists that shaped her journey. It all starts with Phar...
The Torah itself doesn't dwell on it. But the ancient rabbis, they loved to fill in the gaps, to imagine the "what ifs" and the "how comes" of our sacred stories. And in Pirkei DeR...
That’s the kind of secret we’re diving into today, a painful moment ripped from the story of Joseph and his brothers. We find ourselves in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, Chapter 38, a fas...
The scene: The Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, the ancient burial ground purchased by Abraham himself. Jacob, also known as Israel, has passed away in Egypt, and his sons are bringing...
That feeling, that sense of profound loss, isn't just a modern phenomenon. Our Sages wrestled with it too. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and often imaginative work of Jewis...
We read about it every year during Passover, the triumphant moment of freedom. But have you ever paused to imagine the aftermath? The Book of Exodus tells us, "And Israel saw the E...
But what if there's more to the story than we usually hear? to a fascinating piece of Jewish lore found in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, chapter 45, which offers a unique perspective. Th...
The moments leading up to his birth were fraught with danger and a whole lot of divine intervention. The book of Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating text filled with stories and ...
The Torah tells us that Moses, having fled Egypt after, well, that incident, was trying to settle into life in Midian. But trouble seemed to follow him. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a f...
But let’s zoom in on that very first encounter, the one that set the whole thing in motion. It begins with Moses and Aaron, standing before Pharaoh, delivering a message that must ...
There's one in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, Chapter 48, that's definitely worth exploring. Rabbi Joseph tells us a troubling tale about the Israelites' suffering in Egypt. It's a story ...
The sea splits, a nation escapes slavery... but according to some traditions, the heavenly hosts weren't exactly thrilled. to Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 238, a collection of rabbinic ...
Our guide here is Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection of legal interpretations on the Book of Numbers. It wrestles with a verse in Numbers (8:25): "And from the age of fifty he shall ret...
The Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) 31:6 tells us, "And Moses sent them, a thousand from each tribe, to the host, them and Pinchas." But the Sifrei Bamidbar, a collection of ancient rab...
We often think of ritual purity as a key aspect of their service, but sometimes a story comes along that truly shocks us into understanding just how far they would go. Sifrei Bamid...
The verse we're looking at is (Deuteronomy 1:16): "And I charged your judges at that time, saying..." What follows is a commentary that really gets to the heart of leadership and c...
It offers a fascinating glimpse into how our sages grappled with the complexities of applying Torah law in everyday situations. The text begins with a seemingly simple phrase: "amo...
Take the Israelites wandering in the desert, for example. They’d been through so much – slavery in Egypt, the Exodus, the giving of the Torah at Sinai. Yet, here they were, facing ...
Our tradition teaches us that prayer, or tefillah, has a rich tapestry of expressions, each a unique pathway to connecting with the Divine. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of lega...
Jewish law, or halakha, sometimes feels that way – meticulously detailing every aspect of life. But hidden within these details, we often find profound ethical and spiritual lesson...
