389 related texts · 22 related myths · Page 2 of 9
Book of Jubilees turns to Ancient Agricultural Tithes Ordained in Jubilees. The Book of Jubilees isn’t part of the canonical Hebrew Bible that most people know. It’s an ancient Jew...
A reader can dismiss them as outdated or just plain weird. But what if there's a deeper wisdom hidden within? The Letter of Aristeas, an ancient text, gives us a fascinating perspe...
All sorts of momentous events piled up on a single day. This was the very day the Israelites crossed the Jordan River. Can you picture it? After forty years of wandering, they fina...
Legends of the Jews turns to The Forgotten Custom Observed in the Month of Shavuot. Apparently, these communities would gather in their synagogues, reciting the Shema (the central ...
Tikkunei Zohar turns to Jacob Arrived Complete - A Sukkot Teaching. It tells us that "At that time, when He is joined with Her… the tabernacle will be complete." The "He" and "Her"...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah offering "repairs" or interpretations of the Zohar, gives us a glimpse behind the cosmic curtain. It paints a vivi...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, explores this very idea, using the mystical language of numbers and symbols to paint a picture of wholeness. In T...
A future time, a moment of profound transformation linked to Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, when we celebrate the giving of the Torah. On Shavuot, the people will emerge "through ...
(Exodus 12:2) "the beginning of months": I might think, for the minimum of months, two (i.e., the most distinctive of months, Sivan and Tishrei). It is, therefore, written (Ibid.) ...
The Mekhilta raises a question that cuts to the heart of the Passover story: why did God command the Israelites to select the Passover lamb four full days before slaughtering it? W...
Whence is it derived that in the absence of matzoh and maror one fulfills his obligation with the Pesach (Passover)? From "shall they eat it" (in any event). I might think that if ...
"and slaughter the Pesach (Passover): It is a mitzvah to slaughter it as a Pesach offering. If he does not offer it as such, he transgresses the mitzvah. I might think that in the ...
There are four sons: a wise son, a wicked son, a simple son, and one who does not know how to ask. What does the wise son say? "What are the testimonies and the statutes and the ju...
" And perhaps no holiday embodies this more beautifully than Sukkot (the Festival of Tabernacles). Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles. It's a time we build temporary shelt...
It explores the obligations of a ger (גר), a proselyte or convert, specifically concerning the observance of Pesach (Passover), Passover. The verse in question is (Numbers 9:14): "...
Our jumping-off point is a verse from Numbers (Bamidbar) 10:10: "And on the day of your rejoicing and on your appointed times you shall sound the trumpets." Seems straightforward. ...
It's not always as straightforward as it seems. Take Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, for example. The Torah tells us in Bamidbar (Numbers) 28:26, "And on the day of the first-fruit...
Sifrei Devarim reads a set of map coordinates with legal precision: where are Mount Gerizim and Mount Eival? The passage starts with a seemingly simple phrase: "after the way of th...
Our ancestors certainly did. Deuteronomy, the book of Devarim in Hebrew, is full of practical instructions for how the Israelites were meant to live in the land. And tucked away in...
It wasn't just about grand gestures; it was also about the consistent, regular offerings. to a small but fascinating passage from Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal interpretati...
It all comes down to how we interpret the texts, how we tease out the deeper meanings hidden within the words. Let's take a little journey into Sifrei Devarim, a portion of the Deu...
You don't even notice. A poor person finds it, uses it to buy food, and sustains themselves. Did you just perform an act of charity? That's precisely the scenario that Rabbi Elazar...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Tithes and Ritual Purity - What Counts as Unclean. One phrase in particular catches our attention: "and I did not consume of it in uncleanliness (tumah)." T...
Sifrei Devarim turns to Miriam's Well and the True Meaning of Tzedakah. The Sifrei Devarim, a legal midrash on the Book of Deuteronomy, offers a fascinating perspective. It asks, "...
(Gemara) Let us see: when do the priests enter to eat the Terumah? Is it not when the stars appear? Let then the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) say: "From the time the...
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, “There are three matters that the earthly court did and the heavenly court agreed with them, and these are they: Reading the Scroll [of Esther on Puri...
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...
The children of Israel left Egypt in the Hebrew month of Nisan, in springtime, and immediately the sukkot, the booths of the wilderness, went up. They lived in these booths for for...
There were fifteen steps in the Temple that led down from the Court of Israel to the Court of the Women. The rabbis said they matched the fifteen Shir HaMa’alot, the Songs of...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:15) sets the pilgrimage: The feast of unleavened cakes thou shalt keep. Seven days thou art to eat unleavened bread, as I have instructe...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:18) gives the Pesach offering a particular constraint: Sons of Israel My people, while there is leaven in your houses you may not immola...
The Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus, dives deep into this question, particularly in section 30. It all starts with a verse from Isaiah...
Shir HaShirim Rabbah, the classical Rabbinic commentary on Song of Songs, offers a fascinating perspective. It suggests that we can "recount your love through wine [miyayin]." But ...
The verse in Leviticus (23:40) instructs us: "You shall take for you on the first day the fruit of a pleasant tree, branches of date palms, and a bough of a leafy tree, and willows...
Take Sukkot (the Festival of Tabernacles), for example, the Feast of Tabernacles, a joyous holiday where we dwell in temporary shelters, remembering our ancestors' journey through ...
It uses the four species taken on Sukkot, the Festival of Tabernacles, as a metaphor for the Jewish people. It comes from Vayikra Rabbah, a Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive comment...
This feeling, this longing, is actually a call to connect with the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence)? The Shekhinah. What is that, exactly? In Kabbalah, it's often described as the f...
The ancient text, Sifrei Devarim, offers a radical idea about that very possibility. It starts with a verse from Deuteronomy (16:16): "…the presence (pnei) of the L-rd your G-d." T...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 16) transforms the three pilgrimage festivals into richly detailed celebrations. The Hebrew describes Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot (the Festiva...
That feeling resonates deeply within Jewish tradition. We see it reflected in the ancient text of Kohelet Rabbah, specifically in its interpretation of the verse "all the rivers go...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that prayer is the essential weapon of the Messiah. Not a sword. Not an army. Prayer. The teaching begins with a striking image from the Zohar: the ...
Where do dreams come from? The Talmud in Berakhot 55a offers a surprisingly psychological answer: from the dreamer's own mind. Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani taught in the name of Rabbi ...
How long will the Messianic era last? The Talmud in Sanhedrin 99a records a staggering range of opinions, from forty years to eternity. Rabbi Eliezer said forty years, based on (Ps...
When Israel does the will of the Almighty, they rise like ministering angels. This is Aggadat Bereshit's boldest claim about obedience, not that it earns reward, but that it transf...
Jacob blessed Esau's son but knew the blessing came from somewhere deeper than himself. "And God shall give you the dew of heaven" (Genesis 27:28), this is the dew of Mount Hermon,...
Gaster preserves, as exemplum No. 194, a tiny, terrible story, almost a folk horror, about a mother whose son was murdered by his own brothers. She gathered the blood of her son af...
"And they delivered into Jacob's hand all the idols of the people which were in their hands, which they had taken from the temple of Shekem, and the jewels that had been in the ear...
“Judah was exiled due to affliction and great enslavement. She settled among the nations, did not find rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her within the straits” (Lamentations 1...
