644 related texts · Page 2 of 14
Why all this talk of "going up"? It's not just poetic license. The Sifrei Devarim, a collection of early rabbinic legal interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, points to a fasc...
It all starts with a seemingly simple instruction: "Send you men that they may scout the land of Canaan that I am giving to the children of Israel" (Numbers 13:2). But before we di...
The verse sets the scene: “They ascended and scouted the land from the wilderness of Tzin to Rehov, at the approach to Hamat” (Numbers 13:21). But, Bamidbar Rabbah asks, how exactl...
The Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, sheds light on this very question. It tells us that the well, a miraculous source of water that acco...
Ever read something in the Bible that just makes you stop and say, "Wait, what?" I get that feeling every time I stumble upon (Genesis 6:4): "The Nefilim were on the earth in those...
It all starts with a story, a tale of spies, tears, and a day destined for sorrow. Imagine this: Moses and Aaron, leaders of the Israelites, send spies to scout out the land of Can...
We're diving into a moment of profound disillusionment and rebellion in the Israelite camp, right after the spies return from scouting the land of Canaan. The people, as Ginzberg r...
According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, all sorts of momentous events piled up on a single day. This was the very day the Israelites crossed the Jordan River. Can...
The Mekhilta continues cataloguing everything God showed Moses from Mount Pisgah. The question this time: how do we know that God showed him even the graves of the forefathers? The...
In Jewish tradition, Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, is one of those days. It's a day of fasting and mourning, remembering immense loss and tragedy throughout our history. But where d...
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 (Psa...
The question of whether Moses wrote the last eight verses of the Torah—the ones describing his own death—provoked one of the most poignant debates in the Talmud. Bava Batra 15a pre...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that the root cause of exile is a lack of faith. And the cure for exile is the Land of Israel. The connection is not sentimental. It is structural. ...
When harsh decrees threaten the Jewish people, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov prescribes an unexpected remedy: dancing and clapping hands. The logic runs through a teaching about what co...
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...
(Exodus 14:3) "And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel: They are nevuchim in the land": "nevuchim" is "confounded," as in (Joel 1:18) "How the beasts groan! The herds of ...
R. Eliezer says: They journeyed by the word, for thus do we find in two or three places. What, then, is the intent of "And Moses made Israel journey?" He did so against their will,...
"and, behold, the glory of the L–rd appeared in the cloud": R. Yossi Haglili says: So long as Israel railed against Moses and Aaron, at once, "the glory of the L–rd appeared in the...
Amalek's attack on Israel was not a matter of geography or convenience. Rabbi Yehudah teaches that Amalek actually bypassed five other nations to reach the Israelites. He had to cr...
Chapter 7 of Jubilees dives right into the chaos following the emergence of the Nâphîlîm, those figures often translated as "giants" or "fallen ones." Think of them as the offsprin...
The Book of Giants is one of the most remarkable texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—and it tells a story the Bible only hints at. In (Genesis 6:4), a single verse mentions the ...
While the dream sequence in the Book of Giants gets most of the attention, the scroll also describes something the Watchers tradition in 1 Enoch only mentions in passing: the Nephi...
It's not just about "milk and honey," folks. It was a full-blown reconnaissance mission with some fascinating, almost cloak-and-dagger instructions. : sending spies into a new terr...
The journey itself, surprisingly, wasn't fraught with peril from the locals. The text explains that God smoothed their path. As soon as the spies, sent by Moses to scout the land, ...
There you are, wandering in the desert, sustained by food that literally falls from the sky. And yet…you grumble. You whine. You say, "Ugh, not manna again!" It sounds almost unbel...
We often focus on the initial victories, but the story doesn't end there. According to tradition, the battles raged on, and Joshua's leadership was tested in ways you might not exp...
The story goes that when God desired to create the world, He turned to Rahab, who was the angel or prince of the sea. God commanded Rahab to "Open your mouth and swallow all the wa...
Where did they get clothes? How did they stay clean? It's the kind of thing that keeps rabbis up at night, apparently. And it leads us to some pretty amazing stories in the Midrash...
R. Nathan, a sage of old, makes a powerful statement: "There is no mitzvah (commandment) in the Torah whose reward is not 'at its side.'" In other words, the benefit of doing good ...
Korah did not just challenge Moses. According to the Targum Jonathan, he manufactured a theological argument using the very fabric of his clothing, hid treasure he had looted from ...
We all know the story of the spies. The Israelites, poised to enter the Promised Land, get cold feet. "Let's send some scouts ahead," they suggest to Moses. But what was really goi...
Sometimes, it really was – especially when it came to dividing the land of Israel among the tribes. But this wasn't just some random drawing. Oh no, this involved divine interventi...
(Genesis 6:4) mentions the Nefilim. That word, Nefilim, generally understood to mean “giants.” But who were they, really? And where did they come from? The Torah just kind of drops...
We know him as Moses' successor, the one who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. But did you ever stop to consider the sheer scale of the battles he faced? Ben Sira, in his ...
It's considered by many to be part of the Apocrypha, a collection of writings of uncertain origin, that elaborates on stories from the Bible and fills in gaps. Think of it as histo...
The Sefer haYashar, or Book of Jasher, a collection of Jewish legends and lore, gives us a glimpse. Chapter 87 opens with a divine instruction. "At that time the Lord said to Moses...
The story continues, of course! And today, we're diving into Chapter 88 of the Book of Jasher to see what happened as the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land under the lea...
And in Chapter 89, we find just such a song, bursting with praise and recounting God's powerful deliverance. "Then spoke Joshua this song," the text begins, "on the day that the Lo...
Jacob, nearing the end of his life, blessed his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. But within those blessings, the ancient texts whisper, lay prophecies veiled in symbolism. Let's lo...
Can I really do this?" It's a universal struggle, and even Joshua, the future leader of Israel, felt it. Our story unfolds just after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, with t...
The battlefield was set, the armies were engaged, but the real battle, according to Legends of the Jews, wasn't on the ground at all. It was happening on a nearby height, where Mos...
We all know the story: the Ten Commandments, the Golden Calf... but what about the moments in between? The feelings, the doubts, the sheer weight of responsibility? According to Gi...
It’s a question that goes right to the heart of how we remember – and how we live a life connected to something bigger than ourselves. to a story. A story that begins with a broken...
Ever have one of those moments where you hear something so earth-shattering, so potentially disruptive, that your first instinct is... well, to shut it down? To make it go away? Th...
The Torah tells us in Numbers 13 that they departed from Kadesh-Barnea. But where did they go first? The south of Palestine, the least impressive part. Now, why would Moses do that...
The kind that whispers, "Are you sure you're ready for this?" It's a feeling that's haunted humanity for millennia, and it even gripped the Israelites on the cusp of entering the P...
Believe it or not, Moses himself had to deal with that! It wasn't just grumbling in the desert, either. It was a full-blown rebellion. And at the heart of it? A man named Korah. Bu...
The story of Korah's rebellion against Moses is a classic tale of ambition gone awry, but according to some traditions, it all started with a bad hair day – literally. The Zohar, t...
