560 related texts · 2 related myths · Page 10 of 12
The incense altar, the half-shekel tax, and the anointing oil in (Exodus 30:1-38) all receive remarkable expansions in the Targum Jonathan. What the Hebrew text presents as ritual ...
The construction inventory in (Exodus 38:1-31) is mostly numbers and measurements. But the Targum Jonathan inserts one of the most beautiful and surprising details in its entire tr...
The completion of all the Tabernacle's furnishings and garments in (Exodus 39:1-43) should feel repetitive. The craftsmen were building exactly what God commanded. But the Targum J...
On the eighth day of consecration, the first of Nisan, Aaron was about to offer his first sacrifice as high priest. Then he froze. The Targum Jonathan says he "saw at the corner of...
Transporting the Tabernacle was the most dangerous job in ancient Israel. The Targum Jonathan makes clear that one wrong glance at the sacred vessels meant death by divine fire. Wh...
… it is written there “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You…” (Melachim I 8:27) and here it is written “…the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.” (Sh...
Every corner of the known world smelled like paradise the day King Solomon completed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Pesikta Rabbati, a collection of midrashic (rabb...
“He does the will of those who fear Him…” (Tehillim 145:19) Meaning that Gd does not annul his prayers and gives him what he requests. This refers to David, of whom it is written “...
Lapidot - Rabbi Itzchak from the House of Rabi Ami: because she made the wicks for the Tabernacle. And she sat under the date palm - Rabbi Shimon be Avshalom: because of yichud. An...
See [Hen], God is beyond reach in His power (Job 36:22): Rav Berakhiah said, "It is in the Greek language [as hen means one]. It is as you say, One is our God: Exalted in His power...
Midrash on the death of Aaron "I lost the three shepherds in one month" (Zecharia 11:8); and thus, in one month, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses died. Miriam died on the 1st of the month ...
The Book of the Wellspring of Wisdom When Moses ascended on high, a cloud came up against him, and Moses our teacher did not know if one rides it or holds it. Immediately, the clou...
The book of Proverbs throws out one of the great riddles of the Hebrew Bible. "Who has ascended to Heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in the hollows of his hands? Who ...
When the chieftains of Israel rolled up to the Tabernacle with six covered wagons, the Torah uses a strange word for those wagons, tzav. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:8 turns the word un...
A single verse in Proverbs sparked one of the most unsettling debates in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 2:5. "Tzedakah -- righteousness -- elevates a people; and chesed to the nations is a ...
The First Temple, the sages taught, held five tokens of God's nearness that the Second Temple lacked: the Ark and its cover, the sacred fire that came down from heaven, the Shekhin...
The sages taught that forty years before the Second Temple burned, its destruction had already begun to show in the quiet details only the priests could read. On Yom Kippur, the lo...
On the Feast of Sukkot, the Torah commands Israel to offer seventy bullocks across the seven days (Numbers 29:12–36). Rabbi Eliezer asked the obvious question in Sukkah 55b: sevent...
Jerusalem was dying of thirst. Nakdimon ben Gorion, one of the wealthiest men in the city, made a desperate deal. He borrowed twelve great cisterns' worth of water from a Roman Heg...
When Israel went up to Jerusalem for one of the three pilgrimage festivals (Exodus 34:23-24), a season came in which the wells ran dry. There was no water for the pilgrims to drink...
When God commanded Aaron and his sons to kindle the lamps of the menorah in the Tabernacle, Aaron worried. The tribal princes were bringing their own magnificent dedication offerin...
With her third son, Leah reaches for a new hope. This time, she thinks, Jacob will at last be yilaveh, attached, to her (Genesis 29:34). So she names the child Levi, from the root ...
When Joseph and Benjamin finally embrace, their tears do not flow for the reasons we expect. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as prophecy. "He bowed himself upon his brother ...
Benjamin was the youngest, and Jacob's last blessing might be the most exalted. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the Hebrew "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf" (Genesis 49:27) as a declarati...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens one of the most astonishing passages in the entire exodus tradition. "Ye have seen what I did to the Mizraee; and how I bare you upon the clouds as...
Before Aaron's household held the priesthood, someone else did. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 24:5) preserves this little-known tradition: Mosheh sent the firstborn of t...
The Torah closes the Tabernacle construction chapters with a quiet command. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the parochet that conceals the Ark, Aharon and his sons are to tend a la...
(Exodus 28:1) names the first family of Jewish priests. Aharon, brother of Moses, is brought near with his four sons: Nadab, Abihu, Elazar, and Itamar. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan p...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 29:30) legislates how the high priesthood is passed on. For seven full days, the son who rises after his father wears the vestments and enters...
The Torah says God would meet Israel at the door of the Tent of Meeting. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan hears that verse and adds one carefully chosen word: Memra. Not simply, "I will meet...
Once the anointing oil had been compounded and the vessels of the sanctuary had been touched with it, they were no longer ordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes what happened t...
The incense was not simply mixed. It was beaten. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the instruction: after the spices were compounded, Moses was to beat them small, ground fine. And so...
When the Tabernacle needed building, the Torah says donations poured in from everyone whose heart moved him (Exodus 35:21). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a remarkable detail: these g...
The Torah often speaks in categories, the priests, the Levites, the heads of tribes. But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 35:29) zooms out to the widest possible frame: Every man,...
The Tabernacle needed more than materials. It needed people who could work them, weave, embroider, sew, carve, cast, and then show others how to do the same. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
The Tabernacle project had a project manager, and his name was Bezalel. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 36:2) describes the moment Moses formally assembled the team: Mosheh calle...
Some kinds of generosity come in a single burst and then exhaust themselves. The Tabernacle campaign was not that kind. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 36:3) notes the strange rh...
Why five curtains on one side and six on the other? The Torah simply gives the numbers (Exodus 36:16). But Targum Pseudo-Jonathan offers a staggering interpretation: he joined five...
The Torah gives us a glimpse into such an experience with the story of the Ohel Mo'ed, the Tent of Meeting. The Book of Exodus describes how Moses would set up this tent "outside t...
It's a lesson in humility and the power of inner space. The Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, opens with the famous line: "The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai." B...
In the book of Numbers, Bamidbar, we find a census being taken. But there's a twist. "However, the tribe of Levi you shall not count" (Numbers 1:49). Why this exclusion? Bamidbar R...
Our tradition teaches us that the world itself was once like that, a desolate and empty space, until something truly remarkable happened. Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic ...
It seems like such a simple detail, but the Torah dedicates a lot of space to describing the precise arrangement of the tribes around the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And the Rabbis, n...
Midrash Rabbah, specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 2, reveals a fascinating layer of meaning beneath the surface. "The children of Israel did in accordance with everything that the Lord ...
The verse He says that wherever eleh appears, it acts like a reset button, essentially rejecting what came before. On the other hand, ve'eleh – "and these" – adds to what was previ...
It all goes back to a fascinating swap, a divine exchange, that re-shaped the spiritual landscape of ancient Israel. We find the seeds of this story in Bamidbar Rabbah, specificall...
That feeling isn't new. In fact, the ancient Israelites grappled with it too, as we learn from Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers. Our story...
It’s a midrash, a rabbinic interpretation, on a verse from the Book of Numbers – Bamidbar in Hebrew, which gives the whole book its name. The verse in question mentions "the tribe ...
