644 related texts · Page 10 of 14
That, my friends, is a glimpse into the heart of Moses at the end of his life. He's standing there, so close to the Promised Land, after leading the Israelites through forty years ...
He pleaded with God, a conversation recorded in Legends of the Jews and drawn from various Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic sources, begging for just a little longer to...
He’s led the Israelites through the desert for forty years, faced down Pharaoh, received the Torah at Sinai. And now, this. And what does Moses do? He doesn't rage against God. He ...
According to Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, Moses, in his final blessings, had some pretty powerful things to say about the Levites. He specifically calls out Aaron, prince of the...
What happens to a leader when they die? Especially a leader like Moses? We know Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, received the Torah at Sinai, and guided them for forty years ...
The story of Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land is full of such moments, a rollercoaster of triumph and tragedy, and it all starts with Jericho. Imagine this: Joshua, leading t...
The story of Achan gives us a glimpse. It's a tale of transgression, communal strife, and ultimately, redemption – or at least, the possibility of it. See, after the miraculous cro...
Their task? It was not slight. In fact, according to Legends of the Jews, it was comparable to Joshua's entire conquest of Canaan! Now, you might remember Joshua. He took on the la...
The story of David and the Philistines, as told in Legends of the Jews by Ginzberg, gives us a powerful example. After David finally secured Jerusalem, he knew the war with the Phi...
He was no ordinary man. He was a sage, a counselor, a figure of immense respect in Israel. But beneath the surface simmered a desire, a hunger for power that ultimately led him dow...
Even before the drama of Absalom's rebellion, there was a simmering tension between them. Why? Well, it seems David might have inadvertently slighted him. The story goes that short...
The story revolves around a famine in Israel, a famine attributed to King Saul's transgression against the Gibeonites. long ago, Joshua had made a pact with the Gibeonites, promisi...
The biblical account in the Books of Kings gives us glimpses of his fiery personality, his confrontations with kings, and his miraculous deeds. But those are just snapshots. They b...
That’s the kind of pressure Elijah was under. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, Elijah needed to rebuild an altar, dig a trench, and get everything ready in...
The story of Elisha and his disciple Gehazi is a potent reminder. Elisha, a prophet of great stature, had taken Gehazi under his wing. But Gehazi, alas, was deeply flawed. Despite ...
King Josiah, a righteous ruler of Judah, found himself in just that position. The prophecies were grim. Destruction loomed. And Josiah, desperate to protect his people, decided on ...
That was the reality for the Jews being marched into exile in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, that infamous king, wasn’t taking any chances. He’d conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple...
He's just one of the seven princes of Persia mentioned in the Book of Esther (Esther 1:14), advisors to King Ahasuerus. But according to some fascinating Jewish traditions, Memucan...
Sometimes, the answer is more surprising than you think. We often focus on the great men – the kings, the warriors, the prophets. But what about the women behind the scenes? The un...
Take Esther, for example. It’s more than just a name; it's a clue, a whisper of her destiny. The Megillah, the Scroll of Esther, is a story of hidden identities and near-miss disas...
David never went to war without consulting God first. According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, this was the defining principle of his military career—and when the Philisti...
The real power behind the Jewish throne in the first century BCE was not a Jew at all. Antipater, an Idumean whose family had converted to Judaism only a generation or two earlier,...
And sometimes, just sometimes, the mystical texts offer a glimpse, a fleeting impression of that cosmic perspective. The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later, deeply esoteric...
It all begins with Marah. Remember the Israelites wandering in the desert after the Exodus? They’re thirsty, desperate, and finally, they find water! But… (Exodus 15:23) “they came...
Rabbi Akiva found a hidden message in a single word from (Exodus 12:1) — the word "saying." When God spoke to Moses, the instruction included "saying," which Akiva interpreted as a...
And thus do you find with Baruch the soon of Neriah, who complained before the L–rd, (Ibid. 45:3) "You (Baruch) say: Woe unto me, the L–rd has added grief to my pain!" (You say:) W...
Variantly: "for it was near": The Holy One Blessed be He did not bring them directly to Eretz Yisrael but by way of the desert, saying: If I bring them there now, immediately each ...
(Ibid.) "And chamushim did the children of Israel go up from the land of Egypt": "chamushim" indicates "armed," as in (Joshua 1:14) "Then you shall cross over chamushim" (in contex...
Joseph made his brothers swear a solemn oath, and the Mekhilta records the exact logic behind his request. He said to them: "My father went down to Egypt of his own free will, and ...
The Mekhilta offers a second interpretation of the phrase "and Pharaoh pressed ahead," this time focusing on the terrifying speed of the Egyptian pursuit. Pharaoh did not merely ch...
(Exodus 15:1) "Az yashir Mosheh": Az ("then") sometimes signals the past and sometimes signals the future. The past: (Genesis 4:26) "Az men began", (Exodus 4:26) "Az she said", (Ex...
Variantly: "Moses and the children of Israel": We are hereby apprised that Moses chanted the song opposite all of Israel (i.e., that his voice was over and against those of all of ...
The Mekhilta identifies a devastating pattern in the story of Absalom, King David's rebellious son: the very thing he was proudest of became the instrument of his downfall. Scriptu...
R. Shimon b. Elazar says: When Israel do the will of the L–rd, His name is exalted in the world, as it is written (Joshua 5:1) "And it was, when all the kings of the Emori heard, e...
The Mekhilta offers a variant tradition that shifts the scene from the Red Sea to the Jordan River. When Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, all the kings of Canaan b...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered a surprising claim about what life was actually like for the Israelites in Egypt. Contrary to what one might expect from a nation of slaves, Israel liv...
(Exodus 16:13) says simply that "in the morning there was a layer of dew." But the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael saw in this plain statement a description of one of the most elaborate ...
Issi ben Yehudah taught a remarkable detail about the manna that fell in the wilderness: when it descended for Israel, it was visible to all the nations of the earth. The peoples o...
When the manna first appeared in the wilderness, the Israelites had never seen anything like it. (Exodus 16:15) records their reaction: "And the children of Israel saw it, and each...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offered a remarkable tradition about Joshua the son of Nun and his unique relationship with the manna. (Psalms 78:25) says "He sent them sustenance to...
R. Yossi says: Israel ate the manna for fifty-four years, forty years in the lifetime of Moses and fourteen years after his death, it being written "And the children of Israel ate ...
Rabbi Eliezer Hamodai taught that Moses was one of four great tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous) — righteous people — to whom God gave a subtle hint about the future. T...
The phrase "until Dan" appears in the vision God granted Moses from Mount Pisgah (Deuteronomy 34:1). But the Mekhilta raises an obvious problem: at the time of Moses, the land had ...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered his own version of Moses' prayer during the battle with Amalek, and it carried an even more cosmic weight than Rabbi Yehoshua's teaching. Moses said be...
R. Eliezer says: Yithro heard the splitting of the sea and came (to join Israel). For the splitting of the sea was heard from one end of the world to the other, viz. (Joshua 5:1) "...
They said: Rachav the harlot was ten years old when Israel left Egypt, and all forty years that Israel was in the desert, she plied her trade. At the end of fifty years, she conver...
The Torah records that the Israelites left Egypt "in the first month" (Numbers 33:3). This establishes a clear date for the Exodus — the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewi...
