1,870 related texts · 10 related myths · Page 2 of 39
The Torah, and the Rabbis, have some thoughts on that. to a fascinating little piece from Bereshit Rabbah 84, a midrash (exegetical interpretation) on the Book of Genesis. It all c...
(Exodus 21:31) "Or if it gore a son, or it gore a daughter": Why is this stated? (Ibid. 29) "and it kill a man or a woman" tells me only of adults. Whence do I derive (the same for...
(Exodus 22:24) begins: "Im you lend money to My people." The word "im" typically means "if", suggesting optionality. But Rabbi Yishmael taught that this is one of the rare cases wh...
The Torah uses a peculiar phrase in (Exodus 22:25): "Im chavol tachbol", literally, "if you bundle, you shall bundle." The verse appears in the context of laws about taking a garme...
Moses stood on Mount Sinai wrapped in cloud for six days before God spoke a single word to him. Why the silence? Rabbi Jose the Galilean said it was purification, six days to burn ...
Moses did not come down from Sinai with only stone. In Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 1:22, Resh Lakish reads one verse as an entire library. God says, "I will give you the tablets of stone,...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
At the foot of Mount Sinai, when Israel answered the Torah with five Hebrew words, na'aseh v'nishma, "we will do and we will hear" (Exodus 24:7), they did something strange. They c...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records one of the most consequential sentences ever spoken by a people: "All the people responded together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we w...
One of the strangest rituals in the civil law is the piercing of a servant's ear. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it with bureaucratic precision. "His master shall bring him bef...
Among the harder laws of Exodus is the case of the amah ivriyah, the young Hebrew maidservant. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives the verse its full protective force. "If these three...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders a heartbreaking case from the civil code. "If men when striving strike a woman with child, and cause her to miscarry, but not to lose her life, t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan transforms a cryptic self-defense law into a piece of moral clarity. "If the thing be as clear as the sun that he was not entering to destroy life, and o...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders a tight principle of agricultural damages. "If a man break in upon a field or a vineyard, and send in his beast to feed in another man's field, t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the law of entrusted property with precise legal architecture. "If the thief be found, he shall restore two for one. If the thief be not found, t...
The harvest is in. The grapes are crushed. The wine has just begun to settle in its jars. The farmer stands over his abundance and feels the old pull of hesitation. Perhaps next we...
This single verse holds two of the most important laws in Jewish life. And the Targum layers them tightly together. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:19) says: The first ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:33) gives a final warning before the conquest: Thou shalt not let them dwell in thy land, lest they cause thee to err, and to sin before...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:4) describes what Moses built at dawn: Mosheh wrote the words of the Lord, and arose in the morning and builded an altar at the lower pa...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:7) records the moment the covenant was sealed: Mosheh took the Book of the Covenant of the Law and read before the people; and they said...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:8) describes the most solemn act of the covenant ceremony: Mosheh took half of the blood which was in the basins, and sprinkled upon the...
Rebbi, the title given to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law), examines a case in the Torah's laws of damages involving two oxen. ...
You don't even notice. A poor person finds it, uses it to buy food, and sustains themselves. Did you just perform an act of charity? That's precisely the scenario that Rabbi Elazar...
The familiar story centers on their destruction, but the Book of Jasher, a non-canonical Jewish text that elaborates on stories from the Hebrew Bible, really paints a vivid picture...
The familiar story is this:. 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 wer...
We picture this grand, awe-inspiring moment, but Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews paints a rather. different picture. After generations of brutal slavery in Egypt, the Israelites wer...
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 Midrashic (...
"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 Eliezer tackles a textual ambiguity in the Torah's laws of servitude that has real legal consequences. The verse under discussion deals with the acquisition of servants, and ...
Rabbi Eliezer employs one of the most powerful tools in the rabbinic interpretive arsenal: the gezeirah shavah, a comparison of two passages that share a common word. The word in q...
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...
Our tradition teaches that even then, sacred work continues. Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, illuminates Psalm 134, "A Song of Ascents: Beh...
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...
A man lay dying, and he gave his son one final instruction. With the money I leave you, go and trade. Put it to work. The son refused. People who trade are cheats, he told his fath...
When the Lord lays down the sign of the covenant, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 17:10) catches a case the Hebrew leaves implicit. Every male among you shall be circumcised, th...
The laws of Passover refuse the distinction between insider and outsider. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:19) says that whoever eats leaven during the seven days will perish f...
Yet, the rabbis of old saw a deep, underlying unity. A web of connections. Consider the fascinating link they found between the laws of the nazir, the one who takes a vow of separa...
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...
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 ha...
