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A fascinating early medieval text filled with biblical expansions and legends, Noah wasn't exactly rushing to finish the ark. Instead, he spent a whopping fifty-two years building ...
Some fascinating details emerge from Jewish tradition. Rabbi Meir, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, offers a striking image. He says there was a single pearl suspended within the Ark. Bu...
We all know the story: Noah, his family, and a boatload of animals. But Jewish tradition sometimes offers surprising twists, doesn't it? The Book of Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fasci...
We all know the story from Genesis, but there's so much more simmering beneath the surface. to a deeper layer of this iconic tale, drawing from the ancient text Pirkei DeRabbi Elie...
That, according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, is precisely what happened at the Tower of Babel. The story goes that the builders of the Tower, all speaking the same language, suddenly...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, by the way, is a beautiful and somewhat enigmatic work of Jewish literature from around the 8th century CE that retells and expands upon biblical narratives...
Our ancestors wrestled with these questions too, and their stories offer profound insights. The story begins with Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, a towering figure in Jewish history, o...
Think about it: a well-aimed, honest rebuke can clear the air, address grievances, and ultimately lead to reconciliation. Our tradition teaches that rebuke, when delivered with the...
Israel in exile speaks like a child who has finally stopped lying. "Master of the Universe, at first I said 'I have not sinned,' and You brought suffering upon me. Now I say: I hav...
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am He — I am the first, and I am the last as well" (Isaiah 48:12). God speaks with the full weight of eternity — before everyt...
The Sages had a quiet problem to solve. The Torah insists that on the seventh day God rested from all the work of creation — yet the world is full of objects that seem to lie outsi...
When the waters of the flood began to rise and every living thing scrambled toward the ark, a strange creature came to Noah's gate — the Lie. The Lie asked to be admitted. Noah loo...
The rabbis preserved a strange little tradition about how Og, the giant king of Bashan, survived the Flood. The Torah never explains it. Og appears later, towering over the Israeli...
This is perhaps the single most important identification Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes in the Abram cycle. On (Genesis 14:18) the Aramaic declares: Malka Zadika, who was Shem bar No...
Once the pieces were laid out, something ugly came down. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 15:11) calls it plainly: idolatrous peoples, like unclean birds, descending on the sacri...
Jewish tradition grapples with this very question, comparing different eras and communities that faced divine judgment. to some intense comparisons drawn from Bereshit Rabbah, a cl...
It's easy to imagine everyone just carrying on, oblivious, but Jewish tradition suggests otherwise. The Torah tells us, "Noah was a righteous man [ish]" (Genesis 6:9). Seems simple...
In the book of Bereshit, Genesis, we find two such words used to describe key figures: tamim and haya. What do they really mean? , because the Rabbis of old sure had some fascinati...
We all know the classic story: two of every animal, safe from the flood. But what about the things that aren't exactly animals? (Genesis 6:19) tells us, "And of every living being,...
To a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah 32, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. The verse that kicks it all off is God's instruction to Noah: "Co...
Maybe you're in a job you don't love, a relationship that's run its course, or even just a prolonged period of feeling…blah. Well, Noah, yes that Noah of ark fame, knew that feelin...
Our ancestors certainly did. And in the story of Abraham, we find the ultimate tale of answering that call. : God speaks to Abraham, then still Abram, and says, "Lekh lekha" – "Go ...
How do you BECOME ready? Our exploration starts in Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. Here, in section 49, we find a fascinat...
It’s a question that's plagued philosophers and theologians for centuries, and it all starts, strangely enough, with a box. A very special box, mind you – the Ark of the Covenant. ...
Take the story of Noah and the Ark. We all know the basic plot: God sends a flood, Noah builds an ark, and saves his family and the animals. But what about the deeper meaning? What...
The ancient stories of the flood, like the one starring Noah, resonate so deeply because they speak to that very human experience. We all know the story: God saw wickedness and sen...
It's more than just a tale of survival, according to the Midrash of Philo. It's a story of a new beginning, a re-creation of sorts. Philo compares Noah to Adam, the first human for...
It's like the biblical text is hinting at something more, inviting us to dig a little deeper. Take, for example, the story of Noah and his sons after the flood. It's a well-known t...
To a fascinating interpretation from the Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpretations attributed to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. The passage in question revolve...
We often stumble upon verses that seem straightforward but hint at something profound, something beyond the literal. Take (Genesis 17:4), where God says to Abraham, "And I, behold,...
The raven has a terrible reputation in Jewish tradition. Thief. Scoundrel. Untrustworthy. And according to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, a medieval text composed between 700 and 1000 C...
Nimrod is one of those names. He looms large in Jewish tradition, a figure of immense power, incredible arrogance, and profound sin. According to Legends of the Jews by Ginzberg, i...
Walking home from the river, Abraham could not silence his own mind. "What evil is my father doing?" he thought. "He carves these gods with his own chisels and lathes. He shapes th...
Before Abraham was a patriarch he was a shopkeeper's son. His father Terach sold idols in Ur, and Abraham — still a boy — worked behind the counter. The customers came in believing...
The enigmatic "Nephilim" of (Genesis 6:4) get names in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. "Schamchazai and Uzziel, who fell from heaven, were on the earth in those days." These are the Watche...
The journey that will become the spine of the Hebrew Bible begins not with Abram but with his father. In (Genesis 11:31) Terah takes his son, his grandson Lot, and his daughter-in-...
Jewish tradition has some pretty fascinating, and sometimes terrifying, answers. to the story of Azazel, a fallen angel whose lair is the source of some seriously dark magic. The s...
This book, considered scripture by some and a valuable historical source by others, gives us a detailed look into the life of figures from the Hebrew Bible. Today, we’re focusing o...
We're diving into the Book of Jubilees today, specifically chapter 8. Now, the Book of Jubilees is considered apocryphal by many, meaning it's not part of the canonical Hebrew Bibl...
We often think of Abraham as the paragon of faith, but this passage paints a picture of him as a strategist, a man who wasn't afraid to... well, let's just say "bend the truth" to ...
The narrative frame of Sefer Raziel HaMalakh traces an extraordinary chain of transmission—a single book passed from hand to hand across the entire span of biblical history, each r...
Israel in Egypt — fruitful and multiplying, a thousand thousand and myriad myriads — and still, in God's eyes, like a single beloved child. That's the paradox this section of Aggad...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 7:13) narrows the entire human story down to a single doorway. On the day the Flood began, eight people walked through it — Noah, his three sons ...
We're not talking politics here, but something far older, something almost mythical. Let's turn to the Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text also known as Lesser Genesis, that o...
We all know the story – the flood, the animals, the rainbow. But have you ever stopped to imagine the sheer logistical nightmare of keeping all those creatures alive and well for o...
It wasn't exactly smooth sailing. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, things got a bit…complicated. Ham, you see, was not thrilled about his father's curse. S...
The article describes the flood narrative from Genesis vi.9-ix.17, where God destroys humanity due to wickedness, sparing only Noah's family and two (or seven) pairs of every livin...
Philo, the great Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, certainly did. And in the Midrash of Philo, we get a fascinating glimpse into his allegorical interpretations. He reads the Torah...
