465 related texts · 4 related myths · Page 3 of 10
Once, Rebbi was sitting and expounding that one woman bore sixty ten thousands, when a disciple interjected: Rebbi, who is greater, the world or the tzaddik (a righteous person)? R...
(Exodus, Ibid. 16) "And they said to Moses: Speak, you, with us, and we will hear, (and let G–d not speak with us, lest we die.") We are hereby apprised that they lacked the streng...
R. Yishmael says: Come and see the mercies of the One who spoke and brought the world into being, for flesh and blood. For a man acquires himself with money from the hands of Heave...
The future Jerusalem will be built from precious stones so massive they defy imagination. According to Bava Batra 75a, God will take gems thirty cubits by thirty cubits, carve gate...
When Moses was born, the entire house filled with light. According to Sotah 12a, his mother Yocheved saw immediately that he was special, the Torah's phrase "she saw that he was go...
"A husband inherits from his wife." From where do we learn this? Learn it from “And he shall inherit it,” (Numbers 27:11) with the word “it” written in the feminine “otah,” which c...
On the last day of his life, Moses did something no prophet had ever done, he dressed his successor in public, with his own hands. He commanded that a golden throne be brought, alo...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Read-but-not-Written I) But [the children of] Benjamin would not yield (Judges 20:13). The word the children of is missing, for they did ...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
At the end of days, the prophet Malachi says, you will be able to tell the righteous from the wicked at a glance: "You shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked...
"I will assemble Jacob, all of you; I will bring together the remnant of Israel" (Micah 2:12). The end of Aggadat Bereshit's prophetic arc arrives here: not the death of Jacob, not...
Scripture says that Jacob's family went down to Egypt numbering seventy souls (Genesis 46:27). When the sages sat down to count the names listed in the chapter, they reached only s...
(Genesis 19:37), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "And the elder brought forth a son, and she called his name Moab, because from her father she had conceived. He is the father of the Moa...
Serah, daughter of Asher, one of Jacob's sons. We find her name nestled in the list of those who went down to Egypt with Jacob to escape the famine. You can find it in (Genesis 46:...
There was an incident involving Doeg ben Yosef who died and left a young son to his mother. She would measure him in handbreadths and donate his weight in gold to the Temple182Lite...
“It was during the days of Aḥashverosh; that [hu] Aḥashverosh who reigned from India to Kush, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces” (Esther 1:1). Hu [appears] five [times] for ev...
“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...
Ben Sira, in his wisdom, offers a clue: "Their wisdom the community will repeat, and their praises the assembly will recount." It's through the act of remembering, of telling and r...
Incense fills the air, music swells, and then Simon the High Priest appears. He's just completed the sacred service, and the sight is so breathtaking, so imbued with holiness, that...
A small but powerful passage from chapter 4. The Book of Jubilees tells us that in the fifteenth jubilee period – a "jubilee" being a period of 49 years – specifically in the third...
The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that expands on the stories in Genesis, gives us a compelling glimpse through the example of Noah. That Noah's "heart was righteous in ...
When Noah finally stepped onto dry land, one of the first things he did was offer a sacrifice. But what was so special about it? The Book of Jubilees, a text that expands on the st...
Book of Jubilees turns to Noah's Legacy. Specifically, The passage is talking about a particular festival. What festival? Well, that’s up for debate, but the text emphasizes its in...
In the Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text considered canonical by some but relegated to the Apocrypha by others, we find a particularly intriguing answer. what makes a day specia...
Book of Jubilees turns to What Noah Did After Leaving the Ark. The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis, is a fascinating ancient Jewish text that expands on the stori...
Book of Jubilees turns to Watchers — Noah at the Dawn of Creation. The Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text considered scripture by some and a valuable historical source by others,...
Book of Jubilees turns to Noah's Burden After Surviving the Flood. Well, the Book of Jubilees gives us a glimpse into that moment, a peak into Noah's heart. It's not quite the Tana...
The Book of Jubilees, a text considered canonical by some but not included in the standard Hebrew Bible, gives us a peek into Noah's anxieties about the future. Specifically, Jubil...
The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that expands on the stories in Genesis, tells us that Eber had something important to write down. But, as it says, "he wrote it down an...
It's a fascinating read, full of details you won't find anywhere else in the Torah. The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis, presents itself as a revelation given to ...
Book of Jubilees turns to Noah's Spiritual Journey. The world is starting over. Noah and his family are tasked with repopulating the earth. A monumental job. But there’s a problem....
Book of Jubilees turns to Evil Spirits Torment Noah's Grandchildren. This ancient Jewish text, considered canonical by some but not included in the standard Hebrew Bible, offers a ...
The Book of Jubilees, a text considered scripture in some traditions but not included in the Tanakh, fills in gaps in the Genesis story. It's like the director's cut with extra sce...
The familiar story is this: humanity, once united in language and purpose, dared to build a tower reaching for the heavens. God, seeing their hubris, scattered them across the eart...
It's a little different than what you might expect. In Jubilees 14, we find Abraham in a very familiar role: making sacrifices. He offers up pieces of animals, birds, fruit-offerin...
Book of Jubilees turns to Waters of Noah and the Covenant. A celestial court, filled with angels – not just any angels, but the angels of the presence and the angels of sanctificat...
That feeling, that connection, is at the very heart of the Book of Jubilees, a text brimming with blessings, covenants, and the destiny of a people. Specifically, These aren't just...
Book of Jubilees turns to The Massacre at Shechem and the Zealotry of Levi. Chapter 30 tells us about someone who lives righteously, someone who follows God's path. In doing so, ac...
Forget the polite smiles and carefully chosen words. Sometimes, the gloves came off. The Book of Jubilees, a text considered canonical by some but not included in the Hebrew Bible ...
Those passages are easy to skim that part of the Noah story, but the Book of Jasher, an ancient Hebrew text of legend and lore, dives right in! Chapter 7 is all about the generatio...
The version Chapter 10 picks up after the Tower of Babel. Remember that story? Humanity, united and speaking one language, tries to build a tower reaching to heaven. God, not thril...
Jacob, after leaving his previous location, arrives in the land of Shalem, near the city of Shechem – a place in Canaan. He buys a piece of land for five shekels (a type of ancient...
The Genesis Apocryphon (Apocryphal Genesis, אפוקריפון בראשית), one of the original seven scrolls discovered in 1947, is an Aramaic retelling of Genesis that adds breathtaking detai...
The Genesis Apocryphon's account of Noah's birth is one of the most vivid nativity scenes in all of ancient Jewish literature. And it is deeply unsettling. The baby does not look h...
How many people were alive before the flood? According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, an exact census was taken...
After the flood, the entire earth was split into three portions. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, each ...
I’m talking about Noah, the hero of the Ark, the one chosen to rebuild humanity after the Great Flood. But before the ark, before the flood, there was a birth story so extraordinar...
The raven's journey on the ark wasn't exactly smooth sailing. When Noah needed a scout to check on the receding floodwaters, he called upon the raven. But the raven wasn't exactly ...
