1,629 related texts · Page 26 of 34
to a fascinating passage from the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, specifically Tikkun 289, where the human eye becomes a microcosm of the divine. The Tikkunei Zohar, a later exp...
God wanted a home. Not in the highest heavens where angels sing without ceasing. Not in the dazzling worlds of pure spirit. God wanted a home in the lowest, darkest, most difficult...
The transmission narrative in Harba de-Moshe (the Sword of Moses) is one of the most elaborate chains of divine authority in all of Jewish literature. It traces a path from God to ...
The heart of Harba de-Moshe (the Sword of Moses) is its catalog of divine names—and the greatest of these is the Great Name, composed of 70 component names. The number 70 is not ar...
Shimush Tehillim devotes extensive attention to Psalms for healing and wisdom—two categories that, in Jewish thought, are deeply connected. The Hebrew word for healing, refuah (רפו...
Strip away the medieval slander and a real tradition of Jewish magic emerges—one that Joshua Trachtenberg traced from the Bible through the Talmud and into the folk practices of me...
The most widely practiced form of Jewish magic required no special training, no secret names, no angelic invocations. It required only a Bible. As Joshua Trachtenberg documented, m...
Rabbi Eliezer Hakappar Berebbi posed a rhetorical question that reveals something extraordinary about the Israelites during their centuries of slavery in Egypt. Did Israel not poss...
Rabbi Yehudah ben Betheira flips the entire debate on its head with a single devastating observation. The other rabbis have been arguing that chametz must be burned — and only burn...
The Torah describes the Exodus with the phrase "I took out your hosts." The Mekhilta asks a question that might seem obvious but carries deep theological weight: whose hosts are be...
(Exodus 12:43) "And the L–rd said to Moses and Aaron": There are some sections (in the Torah) which are generic in the beginning and specific after, and some which are specific in ...
Rabbi Yonathan addressed a legal puzzle hidden inside the Passover laws. The Torah says "let all of his males be circumcised, and then he shall draw near to offer it." A straightfo...
"One Torah shall there be for the citizen and for the stranger" (Exodus 12:49). This verse — one of the most sweeping declarations of equality in the Torah — might seem redundant. ...
(Exodus 13:9) speaks of the account of the Exodus serving "as a sign upon your hand." The Mekhilta derives from this verse a specific ruling about the construction of tefillin — th...
The Torah commands placing tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand." But where exactly on the hand? The Hebrew word yad can mean the entire arm from shou...
Rabbi Yehudah offered a distinctive argument for the placement of the head tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer), drawing an unexpected connection between the laws of ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael derives a striking equivalence from the verse "and as a remembrance between your eyes, so that the Torah of the L-rd be in your mouth" (Exodus 13:9). ...
(Exodus 13:10) commands, "And you shall keep this statute at its appointed time." The word "statute" — chukkah — could theoretically refer to any number of commandments. Perhaps it...
(Exodus 16:28) "And the L–rd said to Moses: How long will you refuse to keep, etc.": R. Yehoshua says: The Holy One Blessed be He said to Moses: Moses, say to Israel: I took you ou...
Issi b. Yehudah says: There are five ambiguous verses in the Torah: "se'eth," "arur," "machar," "meshukadim," and "vekam.": "se'eth"—(Genesis 4:7) "If you do well, you will be forg...
They said: This thing was expounded by R. Tzaddok, viz.: When R. Gamliel made a feast for the sages, all the sages of Israel were seated before him and R. Gamliel arose and served ...
R. Yossi says: It is written (Isaiah 45:19) "Not in secrecy did I speak, in a place of darkness, etc." In the very beginning, when I gave it, I did not give it in secret or in a da...
The phrase "and I brought you to Me" refers to the moment God gathered Israel before Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. But Rabbi Akiva added a detail to this scene that transforms ...
The Torah describes the revelation at Sinai as occurring "before the eyes of all the people" (Exodus 19:11). The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael takes this phrase and draws from it one o...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asks a deceptively simple question: why were the Ten Commandments not placed at the very beginning of the Torah? If they are the foundation of the cov...
The Torah commands: "You shall not steal." But the Mekhilta asks a question that might surprise anyone who thinks the meaning is obvious — does this commandment prohibit stealing m...
(Devarim 5:26) "Would that this heart of theirs (were in them to fear Me and to keep all of My mitzvot (commandments)h all of the days so that it be good for them and for their chi...
Why do the laws of adjudication — civil justice — take precedence over all the other commandments in the Torah? Rabbi Shimon gave a deceptively simple answer: because adjudication ...
The Torah specifies that a Hebrew maidservant does not go free through the loss of "organ prominences" — external body parts like teeth or eyes that, if knocked out by the master, ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael addresses a legal question about the identity of a wife given to a Hebrew servant by his master. The Torah states that if a master gives his servant "...
When a Hebrew slave chooses to remain in servitude rather than go free at the end of his six-year term, the Torah prescribes a specific ritual: his master takes an awl and bores th...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a legal teaching from Rabbi Nathan that resolves an apparent contradiction in the Torah's laws about monetary obligations. On the one hand, ...
Issi ben Akiva raises a profound moral question about the scope of the prohibition against murder. Before the Torah was given at Sinai, he argues, humanity was already warned again...
Rabbi Yoshiyah pushed the question of women in injury law even further. If men and women are truly equated, he argued, why does the Torah mention either gender at all? Let neither ...
The Torah says: "And if a man strike" — using the masculine form. The Mekhilta immediately asks the obvious question: does this law apply only to men? What about a woman who kills?...
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai asked a beautiful question: why does the Torah require a five-fold payment for stealing an ox but only a four-fold payment for stealing a lamb? His answer...
The Mekhilta lays out a precise hierarchy of liability for theft, distinguishing between different categories of stolen property and the corresponding penalties a thief must pay. T...
But if one steals away from his friend, (who asks to be paid for teaching him), and goes (and hides behind a fence) to learn Torah (i.e., to overhear the lesson that he is teaching...
Rabbi Nathan expanded the scope of the deposit laws beyond their most obvious application. The Torah says that when someone deposits "money" with a neighbor for safekeeping, certai...
"And if stolen, it shall be stolen from him" — the Torah establishes that a paid guardian is liable when the entrusted animal is stolen. But the Mekhilta asks: what about loss? If ...
The Torah addresses the liability of a paid watchman with an apparently redundant phrase: "if stolen, it shall be stolen." The doubling of the word "stolen" in (Exodus 22:11) caugh...
What kind of attack by a wild beast exempts the guardian from payment? The Mekhilta defines the standard: the attack must be by an animal that the guardian could not reasonably be ...
Rabbi Yossi Haglili confronted a problem in the Torah's legislation about seduction. The verse states that when a man seduces an unmarried woman, "money shall he pay" (Exodus 22:16...
Rabbi Nathan interpreted the verse "and perverts the words of the righteous" (Exodus 23:8) as referring to something far more severe than ordinary judicial corruption. The one who ...
Can goat's milk be used to cook sheep's flesh? The species are different — goats and sheep — but both are domesticated livestock. The Mekhilta extends the prohibition through yet a...
Jewish tradition has a powerful and beautiful answer: the Ruah ha-Kodesh, the Holy Spirit. According to tradition, before the Throne of Glory, before angels, before even the stars ...
And Jewish tradition, in its wonderfully audacious way, even imagines God putting on a tallit and tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer). Yes, you read that right. God,...
It might surprise you. Imagine all the angels gathered, a celestial court in session. They turn to the Master of the Universe himself and ask, "What day is Rosh ha-Shanah?" That's ...
