3,887 related texts · Page 1 of 81
The generation of the Flood earned their destruction through arrogance. According to Sanhedrin 108a, God gave them 120 years of warning. They spent those years mocking Noah. The Sa...
Life inside the ark was not paradise. According to Sanhedrin 108b, Noah and his family worked around the clock to keep every animal alive—and one feeding mistake nearly cost Noah h...
The flood waters had covered everything. Noah had been sealed in the ark for months — the rain, the silence, the slow recession of the water, the waiting. Then the text says simply...
God told Noah to enter the ark, and then, after the flood, He told him to leave it. "Go out from the ark" (Genesis 8:16). A simple command — except the rabbis hear in it a whole th...
"A little that the righteous have is better than the abundance of many wicked" (Psalm 37:16). The rabbis of Aggadat Bereshit loved this verse because it turned ordinary logic on it...
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing. God stopped them cold. According to Megillah 10b, He said: "My handiwork is drowning in the ...
A small city, few people, a great king who comes and builds fortifications — (Ecclesiastes 9:14) describes something small being threatened by something enormous. The rabbis identi...
When Noah released a bird to test whether the floodwaters had receded, the Torah tells us he sent out a raven (Genesis 8:7). The midrash on this verse imagines an argument breaking...
Og did not fit inside the ark. That is the whole problem. The world was drowning, the animals were lining up before Noah, and the giant who would later become king of Bashan stood ...
King David was sick and bedridden for thirteen years. His enemies waited. "When will he die and his name perish?" (Psalm 41:6). The midrash reports that seven sheep were laid besid...
The Hebrew Bible says God "shut him in" the ark (Genesis 7:16)—a strangely intimate image of the Creator personally closing Noah's door. Targum Onkelos renders this as "God protect...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:23) captures one of the quiet, careful acts of love in Torah. After Noah has fallen asleep in the shame of the wine, Shem and Japhet took a man...
Nimrod wanted revenge on God. That's how Josephus frames the Tower of Babel—not as a confused construction project, but as one man's deliberate act of defiance against the Creator ...
The Hebrew Bible says God established a covenant with Noah, setting the rainbow as its sign (Genesis 9:12-17). Targum Onkelos renders every instance of "between Me and you" as "bet...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:10) widens the covenant after the Flood to include every creature, without exception. With every living soul that is with you, of birds, and of...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:12) introduces the idea of a sign — an ot — that will anchor the covenant through all time. This is the sign of the covenant which I establish ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:27) turns a brief blessing into a vision of the whole future of learning. The Lord shall beautify the borders of Japhet, and his sons shall be ...
We often hear about Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but what were their lives really like after they stepped off the ark? The blessing Noah bestowed upon them speaks volumes. It hints at a...
How did every species find the ark? Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:20) gives an answer the Torah does not. "Of the fowl after its kind, and of all cattle after its kind, and ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:23) ends the Flood with six words the reader will never forget: Noah only was left, and they who were with him in the ark. The Targum has just ...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating and sometimes enigmatic text, sheds light on this very question. It tells us that the sun marks the days, and the moon the nights, their cycle...
After the expulsion from Eden, Adam separated from Eve for 130 years. According to Eruvin 18b, during that long estrangement, he fathered an entirely different kind of offspring—de...
Stand where the Temple will stand and look down. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:9), the mountain beneath Abraham's feet is not virgin ground. It is the oldest altar in th...
We all remember the flood, the ark, and the animals marching two-by-two. But the raven? And why did Noah send out a dove later? What's the deal? The text itself, (Genesis 8:7-8), s...
We get that the dove comes back with an olive branch, a symbol of hope. But what about that raven? It just… leaves. Never returns. What's the deal with that? The Midrash of Philo, ...
Take Noah, for instance. We all know the story: the ark, the flood, the animals two-by-two. But what about Noah before the flood? What kind of person was he? Well, the book of Bere...
It all starts with a bit of divine disappointment. According to tradition, when the generation of the Flood went astray, God, in a moment of regret, wondered about creating humans ...
The Hebrew Bible says God "descended to see the city and the tower" of Babel (Genesis 11:5). Targum Onkelos will not allow that reading. God does not descend. Instead, "God became ...
Read the verse in the Hebrew Bible and you hear only bricks and mortar. But open Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 11:4) — the expansive Aramaic paraphrase that fills the margins ...
Forget the pyramids; we're talking about the Tower of Babel. It all goes back to Nimrod. Remember him? The mighty hunter, the king who, according to tradition, was the first to rea...
A cornerstone of Kabbalistic literature, Jonah isn't just Jonah. He’s… also the dove from Noah’s ark? Mind. Blown. The Tikkunei Zohar is a collection of mystical commentaries that ...
It’s a story rooted deep in the Flood narrative, and it's got some seriously fascinating layers. After the great flood, Noah needed to know if the waters had receded. So, he sent o...
The Torah calls Noah "a righteous man, perfect in his generations." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:9) tightens the description: "Noah was a just man, complete in good works i...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:11) delivers the promise every frightened heart has clung to since Noah stepped off the ark. I will establish my covenant with you, and will no...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:32) closes the Table of Nations with a sentence that should make every reader pause. These are the houses of the sons of Noah, according to th...
The story of Noah, after the flood, grapples with this very question. We all know the story: the world drowned in sin, Noah builds an ark, saves his family and the animals. But wha...
It's not just the story itself that's fascinating, it's how the Rabbis of old interpreted it. Let’s delve into Bereshit Rabbah 38, a treasure trove of insights into this pivotal mo...
The Torah portion of Noah certainly gives us food for thought on that subject. It's a story of survival, new beginnings...and a rather unfortunate curse. We all know the tale: the ...
Rabbi Azarya began: “Do not see wine in its redness, for one who sets his eye on the cup will walk the straight path” (Proverbs 23:31). Rabbi Azarya said: “Do not see wine in its r...
“Haman saw that Mordekhai was not bowing and prostrating himself to him and Haman was filled with wrath” (Esther 3:5).“Haman saw that Mordekhai was not bowing and prostrating himse...
It involves Noah, freshly off the ark, and a very persuasive Satan. Noah, according to this legend found in Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, decides to plant a vineyard. A no...
There's another tale, even older, that drips with similar horror: the story of Nimrod. So, Nimrod, the mighty hunter, the king who, depending on which source you read, either helpe...
In Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 40, we're given a glimpse into the intricate relationship between the written word, the divine, and our own spiritual journey. It’s a wild ride...
The Mekhilta traces a prophetic thread that spans nearly the entire Hebrew Bible, connecting a drunken curse in Genesis to a divine promise in the book of Joel. When the prophet Jo...
Abraham knew that feeling. The story of the Tower of Babel – you know, that ambitious, maybe even arrogant, attempt to build a tower that would reach the heavens – it's more than j...
The Torah's "his days shall be 120 years" gets a full theological frame in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 6:3). God speaks by His Word: "All the generations of the wicked which...
Take the moment after the Flood, when the world is starting over. God gives Noah and his family a new covenant, a new set of rules. And smack dab in the middle of it, we find this:...
To a fascinating little corner of Jewish thought that wrestles with exactly this question, found in The Midrash of Philo. Philo, in this particular midrash (rabbinic interpretive c...
