2,273 related texts · Page 40 of 48
The opening words of the Song of the Sea — "I shall sing to the Lord" (Exodus 15:1) — prompt the Mekhilta to reflect on what makes God worthy of song. The phrase that follows in th...
The Mekhilta presents a remarkable statement from the congregation of Israel, addressed directly to God, that explains exactly why they are singing at the Red Sea. "Lord of the wor...
The Mekhilta presents yet another parable about human warriors, this time addressing the most dangerous flaw of all: uncontrolled rage. A warrior in a province, it says, may become...
The Mekhilta draws a precise set of parallels between the Egyptian oppression of Israel and the punishment that God inflicted at the Red Sea, showing that every detail of the destr...
The Mekhilta pinpoints the exact moment when Israel first declared (Exodus 15:11): "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?" It was not during the plagues. It was not at the mome...
(Exodus 15:14) "Peoples heard—they quaked": When the peoples heard that Pharaoh and his hosts were lost in the sea, that the rule of Egypt had ended, and that their idolatry had be...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
When God told Moses to take the staff that had struck the Nile, the Mekhilta explains the reason: it was because of Israel's "murmurings." The people had been complaining, and now ...
Israel looked at the staff of Moses and saw only devastation. It had brought ten plagues upon the Egyptians in Egypt — blood, frogs, lice, and all the rest. Then it brought ten mor...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai examined the verse in which God tells Moses he will not cross the Jordan, and he declared: this verse is not needed. The Torah already states the same thing...
The Mekhilta notices something peculiar about how the Torah identifies Yithro. In the beginning of the story, Moses is the one who boasts about the relationship. When Moses returns...
Rebbi — Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — declared that circumcision was so great that all of Moses' accumulated merits could n...
When Moses sat down with his father-in-law Yithro after the exodus from Egypt, he did not simply give a dry report of events. The Mekhilta explains that Moses "related to his fathe...
Did you know that some traditions claim Jacob, father of the twelve tribes of Israel, never actually died? It sounds impossible, doesn't it? He was embalmed, buried… but the story ...
We hear their names, perhaps a small story or two, and then...silence. But sometimes, just sometimes, the silence breaks and a legend blossoms. Take Serah bat Asher, for example. W...
(Psalm 27:13), "If I did not believe in seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living..." It’s a powerful line, isn't it? A raw admission of vulnerability, immediately ...
Take (Psalm 60:8), for instance: "Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver; Moab is my washbasin; upon Edom I cast my shoe;...
That feeling of déjà vu, that unsettling sense that we've been here before… it's a powerful one, and it echoes through Jewish history, particularly when we talk about exile. Sifrei...
R. Nathan said: There is no love like the love for the Torah, no wisdom like the wisdom of the land of Israel,1So MSS. and GRA; V, ‘worldly affairs’. no beauty like the beauty of J...
Abraham tells a foreign king that Sarah is his sister. Again. He already pulled this move with Pharaoh in Egypt (Genesis 12:13). Now in Gerar, he does it a second time—and the Targ...
When the Hebrew Bible says Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and it became a serpent (Exodus 7:10), the Targum Jonathan makes a far more terrifying claim. The rod did not b...
The completion of all the Tabernacle's furnishings and garments in (Exodus 39:1-43) should feel repetitive. The craftsmen were building exactly what God commanded. But the Targum J...
Korah did not just challenge Moses. According to the Targum Jonathan, he manufactured a theological argument using the very fabric of his clothing, hid treasure he had looted from ...
Another explanation: And you will quickly perish (Deuteronomy 11:17)—exile after exile. And thus do you find with the ten tribes, exile after exile. And thus do you find with the t...
When Moses ascended to heaven to receive the Torah, the angels were furious. According to Shabbat 88b, they confronted God directly: "What is a human being doing among us?" God tol...
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing. God stopped them cold. According to Megillah 10b, He said: "My handiwork is drowning in the ...
The Hebrew Bible says God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" and he pursued the Israelites (Exodus 14:8). Targum Onkelos translates this without softening or explaining. The hardening stan...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses died "by the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Ancient tradition interprets this as death by a divine kiss—the gentlest possible departure from life. Ta...
..[With regard to] this did [Jeremiah] say to have it written, 'Surely the shepherd boys will drag away [the evil ones, Edom or Babylonia in defeat].' (Jeremiah 49:20, 50:45) Rabbi...
(3) (Fol. 10b) We have been taught that R. Eliezer says: "In the month of Tishri the world was created; in the month of Tishri the Patriarchs [Abraham and Jacob], were born, and in...
(22) We are taught in a Baraitha, R. Simeon b. Jochai said: "There are four matters that R. Akiba expounded, but which I interpret differently. The fast of the fourth, means the se...
A Kuthean disputed with R. Meir as to the righteousness of Jacob who only separated Levi tithed as one of the io tribes, instead of separating one more for the remaining two. For h...
During a terrible famine, King Monobaz opened the royal treasury and distributed everything inside it to the poor. Every coin, every jewel, every stored reserve of wealth that his ...
The sages would not allow a girl to do as she wanted or to expose herself before the man, who had become lovesick and very ill in consequence. Licentiousness was not to be encourag...
Queen Cleopatra — not the famous Egyptian, but a later queen by the same name — posed a question to Rabbi Meir that had puzzled both scholars and common people: "When the dead rise...
After two full years in prison, Pharaoh dreamed (Genesis 41:1). The midrash reads this through Psalm 73: "As an endless dream, the Lord despised their form." God does not reveal Hi...
"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...
We tend to picture Him as all-powerful, which He is, but the ancient texts sometimes paint a more… visceral picture. A picture of YAHWEH, the Warrior God. Think about the Exodus st...
Turns out, even God has had those thoughts about humanity. We find a fascinating glimpse into this in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genes...
Shemot Rabbah, a treasure trove of interpretations on the Book of Exodus, brings us a powerful insight through a teaching connected to the verse, "These are the ordinances" (Exodus...
“Your iniquity is completed, daughter of Zion; He will not continue to exile you. He will reckon your iniquity, daughter of Edom, He will expose your sins” (Lamentations 4:22).“You...
“Esther did not disclose her family or her people, as Mordekhai had commanded her; Esther followed Mordekhai’s instructions, as it was when she was fostered by him” (Esther 2:20).“...
That’s the situation the Israelites faced at the Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds, what we often call the Red Sea. And what happened next is one of the most iconic moments in the entire T...
It’s a question that surfaces, quite literally, when we read the story of the Exodus. We know Pharaoh's army drowned in the Red Sea. As it says in (Exodus 15:1), "Horse and driver ...
And God remembered Rachel (Gen. 30:22). Scripture states elsewhere: He executeth justice for the oppressed (Ps. 146:7). This verse alludes to Israel. R. Phinehas the priest, the so...
He commanded them, saying; “Thus shall you say unto my lord Esau” (Gen. 32:5). R. Judah the son of Simon began the discussion with the verse: As a troubled fountain, and a corrupte...
37:3). The “son of his features” (ikunim, playing on zikunim, “old age”), for he resembled his father very closely. R. Ishmael said: He was called the son of his old age because Jo...
And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine … and it came to pass in the morning that his spirit was troubled (Gen. 41:2–8). In this verse the word “troubled” is written...
