1,629 related texts · Page 2 of 34
We all know the story. The wicked city, the angels disguised as travelers, the impending doom. But have you ever stopped to consider just how far gone the people of Sodom were? Acc...
We picture this grand, awe-inspiring moment, but Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews paints a rather... different picture. Imagine this: After generations of brutal slavery in Egypt, th...
That feeling isn’t new. to a story about Korah, a figure who challenged Moses and Aaron, found in Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, which itself draws from various Midrash (ra...
"You will prostrate yourselves from a distance" (Exodus 24:1). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this verse not as a physical instruction about how far to stand from Mount Si...
Rabbi Akiva found a striking legal principle hidden inside a single verse about a goring ox. The Torah states that when an ox kills a person after its owner was warned, "the ox sha...
"An ass or an ox or a lamb" — the Torah lists three specific animals in the context of deposit law. But the Mekhilta asks: what about all other domesticated animals? Are only these...
Take Psalm 103, for example. It’s a song of praise, a declaration of divine forgiveness and goodness. But Midrash Tehillim, an ancient collection of interpretations on the Book of ...
King David did. And his feelings echo across the millennia to us. (Psalm 119:19) says, "I am a stranger in the land; do not hide your commandments from me." It’s a powerful line, f...
Jewish tradition grapples with that very human conundrum in the laws surrounding the Hebrew slave, or eved Ivri. Specifically, we're looking at a fascinating little corner of the b...
The Torah, it turns out, is overflowing with them. Take the laws surrounding freeing Hebrew slaves, for example. We find some fascinating details in Sifrei Devarim, a collection of...
Our tradition understands that feeling deeply. It even has laws to protect against it. to a little corner of Jewish law, specifically dealing with the ethics of lending and borrowi...
It's fascinating how much depth there is when you start to dig. a passage that touches on kidnapping, theft, and even leprosy, found in Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal interp...
The full scope of Moses's argument against the angels is recorded in Shabbat 89a, and it is a masterclass in turning your opponent's own premises against them. Moses went through t...
Yet, the rabbis of old saw a deep, underlying unity. A web of connections. Take, for example, the fascinating link they found between the laws of the nazir, the one who takes a vow...
The story, of course, is from (Genesis 19:9). Lot, Abraham's nephew, has welcomed two angelic guests into his home. The men of Sodom, consumed by lust and cruelty, surround the hou...
Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee (Exod. 23:20). Scripture says elsewhere in reference to this verse: But I said: “How would I put thee among the sons, and give the...
Flavius Josephus, in his work Against Apion, gives us a glimpse into the ancient Jewish legal and moral framework, and it’s He's writing to defend Judaism against its detractors, a...
The Mekhilta, the halakhic midrash on Exodus from the tannaitic period, continues its investigation of a recurring biblical formula: when Scripture says God "has spoken," where exa...
R. Eliezer says: The (non-) circumcision of one's servants does not prevent him from eating the Pesach (Passover). And what is the intent of "and you shall circumcise him, etc."? I...
The Torah says in its description of life after the Exodus: "And you do what is just in His eyes" (Exodus 15:26). The Mekhilta identifies this as a reference to integrity in one's ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael identifies a critical distinction in the commandment "You shall not steal." The eighth of the Ten Commandments is not about stealing property. It is a...
"If you lend money to My people, the poor man with you" (Exodus 22:24). In Hebrew, the verse uses the word "im" — "if" — which normally introduces a conditional statement. If this ...
(Exodus 21:2) "If you buy a Hebrew man-servant": Scripture here speaks of one sold by beth-din (to pay for what he has stolen), in which instance he serves both the father and the ...
R. Eliezer says: This (inclusion) is not needed. If a Jew serves, how much more so a proselyte!—But perhaps (I would say) If a Jew serves six years, a proselyte should serve twelve...
The Torah addresses the case of a Hebrew servant whose master gives him a wife during his term of service. In (Exodus 21:4), the verse begins with the word "If" — "If his master gi...
The Mekhilta examines how the Torah's laws governing Hebrew servants apply equally to men and women. The verse states "the Hebrew man or the Hebrew woman" (Deuteronomy 15:12), and ...
(Exodus 21:18) introduces the laws of personal injury: "And if men quarrel." The Mekhilta asks why this section exists at all. The Torah already states in (Exodus 21:24) the princi...
"And if men quarrel" — this verse mentions men. But does the law of personal injury apply only to men? What about women who injure others or are injured? Rabbi Yishmael argued that...
The Torah addresses the case of a master who strikes his slave in (Exodus 21:21), using a phrase that puzzled the rabbis: "But if one day or two days." On the surface, this seems t...
Rabbi Eliezer offered an additional proof that "eye for an eye" means monetary compensation. His argument is an a fortiori — a kal va-chomer — that he considered logically airtight...
(Exodus 21:33) "And if a man open a pit": Why is this stated? It can be derived by reason, viz.: Since the ox is his possession and the pit is his possession, then if you have lear...
"Money shall he restore to its owner" — when someone's animal falls into another person's uncovered pit and dies, the pit-digger must pay compensation. The Torah specifies "money."...
Rabbi Meir draws a remarkable theological lesson from one of the most unlikely sources: the Torah's laws of livestock theft. His observation reveals how deeply God values honest la...
(Exodus 22:4) "If a man ravage a field or a vineyard, and he send his beast, etc.": Why is this written? (Even) if it were not written, it would follow a fortiori, viz.: If a pit i...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching by Rabbi Yishmael on the laws of bailment, drawn from (Exodus 22:6): "If a man give to his neighbor money or vessels to watch." Thi...
(Exodus 22:11) "And if it were stolen from him, he shall pay its owner": This speaks of a hired watcher, and the above (Ibid. 9-10), of a non-paid watcher. But perhaps the reverse ...
The Torah declares in (Exodus 22:17): "A witch you shall not allow to live." The Mekhilta immediately clarifies the scope of this severe commandment. Despite the verse using the fe...
(Exodus 23:13) says: "And everything that I have spoken of to you, you shall observe." The Mekhilta asks what this general command adds to the specific Sabbath prohibition of (Exod...
(Exodus 23:19) prohibits: "You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk." Rabbi Shimon asked why this prohibition is stated three times in the Torah — here, in (Exodus 34:26), and...
Imagine, for a moment, the backbreaking labor of the Israelites in Egypt, their cries lost in the dust and the relentless crack of the taskmasters' whips. It's a scene etched in ou...
to Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms. Specifically, we're going to explore Psalm 136, a powerful song of gratitude that repeats the p...
I do all the time! Take this passage from Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy. It's short, but packed with meaning. It essentially asks...
The Seder Olam reveals a pattern hidden in the calendar of sacred history: the most important events in Israel's story all cluster around one date — the fifteenth of Nisan. It bega...
A farmer was harvesting his field when he realized he had forgotten a sheaf of grain. It was sitting in the far corner of the field, left behind in the rush of the day's work. His ...
We often think of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, as the core, the foundation. But what about all the rest? What about the details, the nuances, the things that seem to go beyo...
On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra." He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord." The voice from the bush was deliberate. U...
What became of Cain? The Bible tells us he wandered, marked and cursed, after the murder of his brother Abel. But the Torah is silent on the details of his death. So, naturally, th...
A person trapped on a low spiritual level might assume that deep Torah understanding is beyond their reach. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says the opposite is true: the pathway from the...
