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We're talking about the story of Joseph in Egypt, specifically his potential marriage to Asenath. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, during the first of the ...
Our story takes us back to Joseph in Egypt, a man who rose from prisoner to viceroy. As his life neared its end, Joseph knew he had one crucial task left: to ensure his bones would...
We often think of the biblical Joseph, Yosef, as a figure of dreams and colorful coats. But he was so much more. He was a leader, a compassionate advisor, and a son devoted to his ...
Pharaoh, wasn't just a generic bad guy. According to tradition, he had a dream. A rather unsettling one. In this dream, all of Egypt was balanced on scales, and a single, solitary ...
Life was good... for a while. Initially, the Egyptians welcomed Jacob and his family with open arms. Joseph, after all, had saved their entire kingdom from famine! But as time pass...
Darkness, locusts, boils… you name it, they got it. And now, finally, Pharaoh is ready to let the Israelites go. But it wasn't exactly a gracious departure. According to Ginzberg's...
It wasn't just about getting cheap labor back, oh no. According to the ancient stories, it was something far more sinister. The Legends of the Jews tells us the Egyptians weren't a...
Our sages certainly did. The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, dives deep into this very question. Specifically, it wrestles with (Psalm 78:4...
Her story, as told in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 38), takes a turn you might not expect. So, what happened to Asenath before she met Joseph? According to this tradition, Jacob...
It’s like a giant cosmic puzzle, and sometimes, the key to one piece lies hidden within another. Today, we're going to unlock a tiny but fascinating corner of that puzzle. We're di...
Let's unravel one such mystery together, found within the ancient text of Sifrei Devarim. We turn to the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), specifically chapter 33, verse 20. It speaks...
Genesis 44 contains one of the most emotionally powerful speeches in the Hebrew Bible—Judah's plea before the Egyptian viceroy to take Benjamin's place as a slave. Targum Jonathan ...
It’s a question that echoes through the story of Joseph, as we find it explored in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. The passage ope...
Pharaoh knew that feeling all too well. (Genesis 41:8) tells us, "It was in the morning and his spirit was troubled; he sent and summoned all the magicians of Egypt, and all its wi...
Sometimes, it's from the most unexpected places. Take the story of Joseph in Egypt. He rises from prisoner to become second-in-command to Pharaoh. And within that rise, hidden in P...
One minute you're celebrating abundance, the next you're facing scarcity. The story of Joseph in Egypt gives us a powerful glimpse into this precarious balance, and the ancient rab...
Jacob, seeing a famine in the land, tells his sons, "Why do you make yourselves conspicuous?" (Genesis 42:1). Simple enough. But the rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive co...
That’s kind of what happened to Jacob after Joseph disappeared, according to the ancient commentary, Bereshit Rabbah. The Torah tells us, "Jacob saw that there was grain [shever] i...
Jewish tradition is full of stories of forgotten heroes, and one of the most poignant comes to us from Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Ecclesia...
It starts with a small city, a vulnerable one. “There was a small city,” the text says, and the rabbis interpret this city as none other than Egypt. “And few men in it” – these, re...
But what if I told you there's a perspective, woven into ancient Jewish thought, that offers a slightly different angle?Now, midrash (מדרש) itself, broadly speaking, is a way of in...
“When they [the king’s servants] spoke to him [Mordekhai] daily and he did not heed them, they told Haman, to see whether Mordekhai’s words would prevail; for he had told to them t...
He wasn't just some guy with a knack for dream analysis. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, he possessed something far more profound. Pharaoh, wasn't entirel...
That's the situation Joseph found himself in, according to Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg. The story unfolds with Joseph, now a powerful figure in Egypt, testing his brother...
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...
The story opens with a sage, simply called Rabbi, deeply engrossed in defining the precise borders of the tribe of Benjamin. Now, Benjamin was one of the twelve tribes of Israel, e...
The Book of Exodus opens with a list of names and a king who "knew not Joseph." Targum Jonathan transforms this into something far more vivid—adding a prophetic dream, naming Phara...
We find it in the Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text that retells and expands upon stories from Genesis. (It’s considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, by the way, ...
We all know the story of Joseph. Sold into slavery, falsely accused, imprisoned, but ultimately rising to become second-in-command in Egypt. But what happened after he interpreted ...
He wasn't a Canaanite, mind you, those ancient inhabitants of the land of Israel. But, like some of them, Korah serves as a cautionary tale: immense wealth, squandered by pride. Th...
A golden cup hidden in a sack of grain. That was Joseph's final test—not to punish his brothers, but to see whether they had changed. He planted his own drinking cup in Benjamin's ...
Benjamin, twelfth and last son of Jacob, born of Rachel, had lived a hundred and twenty-five years. He kissed his sons and began to speak. "As Isaac was born to Abraham in his old ...
It all starts with Jacob, also known as Israel, nearing the end of his life in Egypt. Asenath, Joseph's wife, notices Jacob's declining health. Knowing the power of a righteous man...
We find ourselves in Egypt, where Joseph, having risen to power, confronts his brothers. Remember, these are the very brothers who sold him into slavery years before. Now, disguise...
That's the kind of tension we find ourselves in with the story of Joseph and his brothers in the Book of Genesis, a story amplified and deepened by Jewish legend. Joseph, now a pow...
It turns out, that feeling might be more ancient and profound than you think. Jewish tradition actually has something pretty amazing to say about it. to a fascinating little teachi...
to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, and see how it illuminates a poignant moment in the Joseph s...
The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that retells and expands upon stories from Genesis, picks up the narrative with Joseph at a pivotal moment. It tells us that on the ver...
Remember Joseph, the favored son sold into slavery in Egypt? He's now a powerful figure, and his brothers, unknowingly standing before him, are begging for the release of their you...
But the why behind the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine might be more dramatic than you think. Remember how Joseph, after years of hardship, finally finds himsel...
Take the story of Joseph and his brothers. Talk about a tangled web! We all know the story. Joseph, the favored son, gets sold into slavery in Egypt. Years pass. He rises to power,...
He's already endured the unspeakable loss of his beloved son, Joseph. Or so he thinks. His other sons, driven by jealousy, had secretly sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt years ago,...
After years of famine, Joseph, now the all-powerful viceroy of Egypt, finally reveals himself to his brothers. Can you imagine their shock? "Ye see it with your own eyes," Joseph d...
Joseph, the dreamer, the interpreter of dreams, the viceroy of Egypt… he died younger than he should have. The Sefer ha-Yashar attributes his early demise to a seemingly minor infr...
It's the twenty-first day of the second month, in the second year of a devastating seven-year famine. Jacob, weary but resolute, makes his way down to Egypt. Famine had gripped the...
The scene: a devastating famine grips the land. Jacob's sons have returned from Egypt with grain, but it’s gone. They need to go back, but the mysterious Egyptian ruler—who we, the...
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...
The famine in the land was brutal. The people were starving. Desperate, Jacob turned to his sons: "Go again," he pleaded, "and procure food for us, that we die not." But his sons w...
