560 related texts · 2 related myths · Page 2 of 12
"And it was on the day that Moses had finished to erect the tabernacle" (Numbers 7:1). Rabbi Simon said, "At the time that the Holy One, blessed be He, told Israel to make the tabe...
The familiar version gives us about the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, and even receiving the Ten Commandments. But what about the nitty-gritty details of setting up their new...
That feeling, that heavy weight of responsibility, might give you just a glimpse of what Aaron, the High Priest, must have felt on that momentous day of the Tabernacle's consecrati...
(Ibid. 21) "And the L–rd went before them by day with a pillar of cloud": We find there to have been seven clouds: here, (Numbers 14:14) twice, (Ibid. 9:19), (Exodus 40:36), (Ibid....
The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, wrestles with this very idea in Psalm 42. It speaks of God "passing through the camp with an a...
In the Torah, God simply stands beside Jacob in the dream (Genesis 28:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adjusts the posture with surgical care. What Jacob saw was not God Himself but...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to The Hidden Deal God Made with Israel Back in Egypt. One interpretation suggests that "vayhi" hints at a previous agreement. Rabbi Yehoshua says that God ma...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to God's Power Is Restrained Yet Infinitely Greater Than Ours. How do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory ideas? Bamidbar Rabbah offers a beautiful exp...
The answer, again and again, comes back to this: God is everywhere. It's right there in the scriptures. As it says, "His presence fills all the earth" (Isaiah 6:3). He fills the he...
The second row of the breastplate carried three more tribes, and the meturgeman names the stones: smarag, sapphire, and chalcedony. On them were inscribed Judah, Dan, and Naphtali ...
The fourth and final row of the breastplate, according to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:13), held chrysolite, onyx, and jasper. Engraved upon them were the names of Zebulun,...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:14) tells us something small and enormous at once. The twelve stones of the breastplate were engraved as the engraving of a ring, each tribe's ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:37) describes the menorah and its lamps, but adds a line the Hebrew never says aloud. The lamps, the meturgeman tells us, were ordained to corr...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:4) turns a floor plan into a theology. Moshe is instructed to place the table of showbread on the north side of the sanctuary and the menorah o...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:7) takes the bronze laver, a basin of water set between the sanctuary and the altar. And turns it into a picture of teshuvah. Place the laver h...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:10) takes the consecration of the altar of burnt offering and turns it into a prophecy. Anoint the altar, the meturgeman says, on account of th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:11) turns the consecration of the bronze laver into a vision of the distant future. Anoint the laver, the meturgeman says, on account of Jehosh...
One powerful answer lies in the concept of the Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה). The Shekhinah, often described as the divine feminine presence, the immanent glory of God, has a fascinating a...
The Tabernacle of Moses is counted like heaven is counted. In Zohar, Pekudei 1, Rabbi Hiya reads "these are the accounts of the Tabernacle" through the verse, "All the rivers run i...
The familiar picture has them trudging through sand, but the Torah tells us there was something else accompanying them: a cloud. Actually, maybe more than one cloud. The verse in B...
The Hebrew Bible mentions a cloud over the Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a sentient navigation system, a pillar of divine fire and glory that dictated every movemen...
The Torah says do not fear superior armies. Targum Jonathan says something far more radical, all the enemy's horses and chariots "are accounted as a single horse and a single chari...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan stages Moses's greeting of Jethro with cinematic care: "Moses came forth from under the cloud of glory to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and ...
When Moses entered the tabernacle of instruction, the heavens did not stay silent. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, gives us the scene in its fullness. ...
And the Lord went before them by day (Exod. 13:21). You find that there were seven clouds of glory in all. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud (ibid.) was the...
You're in good company. Even Moses, the great lawgiver, felt that way. God Himself tells Moses, "Go, deliver Israel!" And what's Moses's response? "Who am I?" He essentially says, ...
It's a story of atonement, of divine presence, and of a relationship between God and the Jewish people that’s been unfolding for millennia. Think back to the Day of Atonement. Imag...
A experience. God unveils before him the very blueprints for the Mishkan, the Tabernacle – that portable sanctuary that would house the Divine Presence during the Israelites' wande...
It wasn’t just a tent, was it? According to ancient wisdom, it was a reflection of something much, much bigger. The idea is this: "for to all that is above there is something corre...
Think about the Tabernacle, and later the Temple in Jerusalem. Gold, silver, brass… these were the materials of choice. But iron? Conspicuously absent. According to rabbinic tradit...
The familiar telling remembers Moses, the leader, the lawgiver. But what about the unsung heroes, the ones whose eagerness and devotion actually brought the whole thing to life? We...
Everything was actually finished in the month of Kislev, that’s around November/December on our calendar. They were ready to go, eager to erect this physical manifestation of God's...
Seems like a pretty sacred task. Well, not everyone saw it that way. Ginzberg, in his monumental work, Legends of the Jews, tells us that even as Moses was leading this incredible ...
See, before the Mishkan was built, the world was apparently crawling with demons. Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, recounts how these spirits had free rein, wandering wherever the...
For Elisheba, the joy is amplified fivefold! As Ginzberg recounts in Legends of the Jews, luck seems to be showering blessings specifically on her. Her husband, Aaron, is the High ...
The princes of the tribes in the story of building the Mishkan (Tabernacle) knew that feeling all too well. In Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, when Moses called for do...
The tribal offerings at the Tabernacle look repetitive until Ginzberg lets them carry the whole history of the world. These weren't just offerings. According to the Legends of the ...
It wasn't just a party. It was so much more. The Mishkan, or Tabernacle, was the portable sanctuary the Israelites carried through the desert after the Exodus. A physical represent...
What's striking is this: the number of fighting men was exactly the same as the second census, which happened in the very same year! Now, according to Legends of the Jews, as retol...
Legends of the Jews turns to Pillars of Fire and Cloud of Moses. The Talmud, specifically in Sifrei Bamidbar (Numbers) Piska 84, tells us that when God wanted Israel to move, the c...
Seems straightforward. God wanted the selection to happen at the Tabernacle – the Mishkan, that portable sanctuary that was the heart of their spiritual lives. The idea was to impr...
The ancient Israelites certainly did. And sometimes, loss can make that feeling even more intense. You're trekking through the desert, following a cloud that miraculously smooths t...
Normally, when Moses journeyed from his home to the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, it was a procession of carefully ordered respect. He, Moses, would walk in the very center. To his righ...
Legends of the Jews turns to Zebul Succeeds Kenaz and Rebuilds the Tabernacle. Enter Zebul. He’s appointed as Kenaz’s successor. But Zebul isn't just interested in filling a vacanc...
The people brought so much gold that Moses had to tell them to stop. That detail, preserved by Josephus, captures something remarkable about the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle...
One fascinating place to explore this is in the Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text whose name means "48 Doors of Wisdom." It speaks of a "new heavens and a new land," echo...
Sometimes, it’s about finding those meanings in the most unexpected places. like in the dimensions of the Tabernacle! The Tabernacle, or Mishkan, as it’s known in Hebrew, was the p...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a mystical extension of the Zohar, speaks to this very feeling in its 105th section. It paints a vivid, and frankly, unsettling picture. The ...
