1,870 related texts · 10 related myths · Page 4 of 39
The Torah, in its own way, grapples with this very question. We find ourselves in the Book of Exodus, a pivotal moment in the story of the Israelites. Moses is about to ascend Moun...
Bava Metzia 59b), a story about rabbinic authority and, surprisingly, God's good-natured acceptance of it. It all starts with a disagreement. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a renowned...
The Talmud in Tractate Eruvin asks a strange question: why is the Torah compared to a deer? The answer: a deer's womb is narrow. Every time the deer mates, it is as cherished as th...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders "saw the God of Israel" (Exodus 24:10). This is an extraordinary claim, direct visual perception of the divine....
. Another reading: “Comfort, oh comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1) Said the Holy Blessed One: Who needs to be comforted? For one whose wife died, not the husband? Thus was Zion analo...
The Small Letters and their Purposes The ALEPH in ויקרא And He called (Leviticus 1:1) is small, to teach that the Holy Blessed One is only revealed to the nations of the earth thro...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Sheni Ketuvim In the beginning God created etc. - To declare the might of the acts of creation to creatures, and to make it known to them...
Moses stood before Israel and said: "You have been shown to know that the Lord, He is God; there is none beside Him" (Deuteronomy 4:35). Not told, shown. The plagues, the sea, the ...
Shabbat Shekalim arrives on the Shabbat before the month of Adar ends, the first of the four special Sabbaths that prepare the Jewish people for Passover. The Torah reading is brie...
In the years after the fall of the holy city, a mother named Hannah and her seven sons were thrown into prison. One by one, in order of their ages, the tyrant brought the boys befo...
A difficult case came before the elders. A young man was suspected of illegitimate birth, and the Rabbis disagreed about his status. Rabbi Yehoshua ruled that he was a ben niddah, ...
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was dying. Around his bed stood his greatest student, Rabbi Akiva, and what Eliezer did with his final breath changed Jewish law forever. He began teachi...
The sages were debating whether a certain oven, built in sections and joined with sand, could become ritually unclean. Rabbi Eliezer ruled it pure. The majority ruled it impure. He...
When Isaac laid his hands on Jacob a second time, this time with full knowledge of whom he was blessing, he called down the name by which the patriarchs had always known the Holy O...
The sentence is short and severe. Whosoever sacrificeth to the idols of the Gentiles shall be slain with the sword, and his goods be destroyed; for ye shall worship only the Name o...
A calf is born. A lamb is born. The farmer knows this one is destined for the altar, a firstborn male, dedicated to God from its first breath. What happens in the interval between ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 22:30) sets an unusual standard: holy men, tasting unconsecrated things innocently, shall you be before Me; but flesh torn by wild beasts a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:13) gives an unusual command: of all the precepts that I have spoken to you, be careful; and the names of the idols of the Gentiles reme...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:16) names two festivals without naming them by their later names: the feast of the harvest first-fruits of the work thou didst sow in th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:18) gives the Pesach offering a particular constraint: Sons of Israel My people, while there is leaven in your houses you may not immola...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:22) makes a promise that sounds almost like a battle cry: if thou wilt indeed hearken to His Word, and do all that I speak by Him, I wil...
When Israel enters the Land, the Torah expects a specific kind of work, not only settlement, but demolition. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:24) commands: Thou shalt no...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:25) gives a promise that ties worship to health: you shall do service before the Lord our God and He will bless the provision of thy foo...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:31) maps Israel's inheritance: I will set thy boundary from the sea of Suph, to the sea of the Philistaee, and from the desert unto the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:3) describes the extraordinary moment before the covenant is sealed: Mosheh came and set before the people all the words of the Lord, an...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 24:12) reads simply that God promised Moses the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the commandment. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot leave it that spare....
The Targum on (Exodus 24:16) preserves a detail that the plain text rushes past. The glory of the Lord's Shekhinah rested on Mount Sinai, and the Cloud of Glory covered it for six ...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 24:17) says that the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. The T...
The plain verse of (Exodus 24:18) is almost flat. Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain, and he was there forty days and forty nights. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot ...
When Moses came down from Sinai, he was carrying something that did not come from earth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the tradition with striking specificity: God gave to Moses...
The timeline is what makes the sin unbearable. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves God's charge with its full sting: "Quickly have they declined from the way which I taught them in Si...
There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of the baker, who was taken captive with her seven sons. The emperor took them and placed them behind seven partitions. He brought t...
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His fury” (Lamentations 3:1).“I am the man” – Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina began: “Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Barukh s...
There was an incident involving Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya, who went to the great city of Rome. They said to him: ‘There is a certain child in prison in disgrace.’10The Romans were...
The Torah addresses the case of a thief who cannot repay what he stole. (Exodus 22:3) states: "If he lacks it, he is to be sold for his theft." The thief, unable to make restitutio...
He's up against someone filled with animosity, someone ready to do him harm. We don't know exactly who, but the text paints a vivid picture of unwavering hostility. What does this ...
"Blind your eyes because of a widowed woman, and do not covet her beauty in your heart." That's what Ben Sira says, in the proverb attached to the Hebrew letter Ayin (ע). And it's ...
When a person is about to die, the angel assigned to them delivers a devastating eulogy. Not a eulogy of praise. A eulogy of regret. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12t...
God continued speaking to Enoch, and the story of creation grew stranger and more terrible. He had made the heavenly circle firm. He commanded the waters below heaven to gather int...
His story of wrestling with an angel is one of the most powerful and enigmatic in the entire Torah. As Jacob journeyed back to Canaan, anticipating a tense reunion with his brother...
Like many great stories, it begins with a bit of divine drama. The scene: Adam has just eaten from the Tree of Knowledge (oops!), and as a result, things are about to change, big t...
Our tale begins with angels leaving Abraham at midday, their wings carrying them towards Sodom as evening approached. Now, usually, angels are all about speed. They deliver their m...
The story of Lot, Abraham's nephew, gives us a masterclass in hospitality gone wrong. The familiar version gives us the basics: God, displeased with the wickedness of Sodom, sends ...
Legends of the Jews turns to Isaac and the Angels of Abraham. Abraham, on his way home with a mysterious stranger, hears a voice coming from a tree. Not just any voice, but one pro...
What does he do? Does he stand back, waiting for someone to acknowledge him? Nope. He takes the initiative. "My brethren, whence be ye?" he asks. A simple question, but oh-so-power...
His extended stay behind bars had a very specific reason. The familiar story is this: Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, rises in power in Egypt, only to be falsely...
A devastating famine had gripped the land of Canaan, and word reached Joseph, now a high-ranking official in Egypt, that his brothers might be forced to come seeking grain. Remembe...
Freedom. Did everyone just instantly start singing and dancing? Well, not exactly. In Ginzberg's retelling in, Legends of the Jews, the Israelites were… well, they were exhausted. ...
