2,682 related texts · 19 related myths · Page 53 of 56
Moses commanded the people: "Remember this day when you went out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:3). The Mekhilta notices that this verse, taken alone, refers to the daytime, "this day." The ...
(Exodus 13:8) includes the phrase "because of this", ba'avur zeh. The Mekhilta asks: what is the purpose of this phrase? The answer involves one of the most famous figures in the P...
The Torah mentions redeeming "the first-born of the unclean beast" in (Numbers 18:15), which could suggest that every unclean animal's firstborn must be redeemed. Camels, horses, d...
(Ibid.) "And chamushim did the children of Israel go up from the land of Egypt": "chamushim" indicates "armed," as in (Joshua 1:14) "Then you shall cross over chamushim" (in contex...
(Exodus 14:1-2) "And the L–rd said to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel that they return and encamp": R. Shimon b. Yochai says: Wherever it is written "saying and tell...
Pharaoh was told "that the people had fled" (Exodus 14:5). But had Israel actually fled? The Torah itself states in (Numbers 33:3) that "on the morrow of the Pesach, the children o...
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...
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel drew a startling comparison between two empires. Egypt after the Exodus and Rome in its prime, to illustrate how completely the departure of Israel had gut...
With the Egyptian army bearing down and the Red Sea blocking their path, the Israelites succumbed to terror. It was Moses who stepped forward and spoke the words that steadied an e...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offers a vivid interpretation of God's attack on the Egyptian army during the crossing of the Red Sea, reading the verse "And He shall let fly His sha...
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 di...
Rabbi Eliezer preserves a stunning exchange between God and Moses at the shore of the Red Sea. The Israelites were trapped, the sea raging before them, the Egyptian army closing be...
(Exodus 14:22) "And the children of Israel came in the midst of the sea on the dry land": R. Meir perceives it one way; R. Yehudah, another. R. Meir: When the tribes were standing ...
Rabbi Yossi raises a startling possibility about the ten plagues. The destruction at the Red Sea, he argues, was not a separate event from the plagues in Egypt, it happened simulta...
When Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, heard about everything that had happened at the Red Sea, he made a remarkable declaration: "Now I know that greater is the Lord than all th...
(Exodus 14:28) "And the waters returned and covered the chariot, etc.": even that of Pharaoh. These are the words of R. Yehudah, it being written (Ibid. 15:4) "the chariots of Phar...
Rabbi Akiva posed a provocative question: where do we learn that each of the ten plagues that struck Egypt was actually five plagues in one? If this calculation is correct, the Egy...
The Torah records a transformation at the Red Sea: "And the people feared the Lord" (Exodus 14:31). The Mekhilta notes the significance of the word "feared." In the past, the Israe...
He devoted his life to the judges, and they were called by his name, viz. (Devarim 16:18) "Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all of your gates." Now is justice ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws a pointed contrast between two moments of song in Israelite history, and the difference reveals something fundamental about the nature of the So...
The Song of the Sea declares: "A horse and its rider He has cast into the sea" (Exodus 15:1). But this statement raises an immediate question. Was there really only one horse? The ...
The Mekhilta draws attention to a strange detail about the drowning of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. When God cast "a horse and its rider" into the sea, something happened that...
The Mekhilta notices a subtle but important contradiction in the Song of the Sea and resolves it with a vivid image of what actually happened to the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Se...
The Song of the Sea declares: "The depths covered them" (Exodus 15:5). The Mekhilta asks an obvious but brilliant question: are there really depths at the bottom of the sea? The Is...
The Mekhilta draws a striking comparison between the experience of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the great fish and the fate of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. And the Egypti...
The Mekhilta asks another of its characteristically sharp questions about the Red Sea crossing. The verse says the Egyptians "descended into the metzulot", the whirlpools or churni...
The Mekhilta continues its grammatical investigation of the Song at the Sea and finds yet another future-tense verb. (Exodus 15:7) does not say "He has consumed them as stubble", p...
The Mekhilta draws a remarkable distinction between what the Red Sea was for Egypt and what it was for Israel. For the Egyptians, the sea was a sealed tomb. For the Israelites, it ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offers a vivid image of what happened to the Egyptians at the bottom of the Red Sea. The Torah says "the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea...
"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. And...
(Exodus 15:12) declares: "You inclined Your right hand, the earth swallowed them up." The Mekhilta reads this verse not primarily as a description of the Egyptians' death, but as a...
The Mekhilta offers a vivid and unsettling analogy for divine power over the nations. Picture a man holding eggs in his hand. He tilts his hand just slightly, barely a movement, an...
The Mekhilta applies the same logic to Moab that it applied to Edom. The verse says "the mighty ones of Moab were seized with trembling," and the rabbis ask the same question: why?...
(Exodus 15:26) "And He said: If pay heed, you shall pay heed": From here it was derived: If a man paid heed to one mitzvah, he is caused to pay heed to many mitzvoth (commandments)...
Rabbi Yossi HaModai offered a clever observation about the order in which the Torah lists the foods the Israelites craved in the wilderness. In (Numbers 11:5), the people complain:...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
When the manna first appeared in the wilderness, the Israelites had never seen anything like it. (Exodus 16:15) records their reaction: "And the children of Israel saw it, and each...
The Israelites called it manna. It fell from heaven every morning, and the Torah describes it with a comparison that immediately puzzles the Mekhilta's rabbis: "And it was like cor...
When God commanded that a jar of manna be preserved, the instruction was specific (Exodus 16:33): "Put therein a full omer of manna and place it before the Lord as a keeping for yo...
(Exodus 18:4) "and the name of the second, 'Eliezer,' for (Moses said: 'The G–d of (Elokei) my father was my help (ezri), and He saved me from the 'sword of Pharaoh.'" R. Yehoshua ...
A small textual puzzle in the book of Exodus reveals something important about Moses' family. The verse states (Exodus 18:5): "And Yithro, Moses' father-in-law, and his sons and hi...
Yithro's declaration "Now I know that greater is the Lord than all the gods" (Exodus 18:11) is more remarkable than it first appears. The Mekhilta points out a critical detail: the...
The Torah records that the Israelites left Egypt "in the first month" (Numbers 33:3). This establishes a clear date for the Exodus, the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewis...
The Torah records the arrival at Sinai with a precise phrase (Exodus 19:1): "On this day they came to the desert of Sinai." The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael identifies the exact date ...
R. Yehudah ben Lakish offered a poignant interpretation of the verse (Exodus 2:25): "And God saw the children of Israel, and God knew." The verse God observed Israel's suffering in...
Throughout the book of Exodus, whenever the Israelites traveled, the Torah uses the plural form, "they journeyed," "they encamped", because the people moved in discord and settled ...
The Mekhilta offers a poetic interpretation of the Song of Songs, reading its romantic language as a dialogue between God and Israel. And locating that dialogue in specific moments...
