4,543 related texts · 51 related myths · Page 1 of 95
Moses stood before Israel and said: "You have been shown to know that the Lord, He is God; there is none beside Him" (Deuteronomy 4:35). Not told, shown. The plagues, the sea, the ...
Pharaoh's daughter did not accidentally find Moses. According to Sotah 12b, she came to the river to immerse herself, not for bathing, but to wash away the spiritual impurity of he...
When Pharaoh decided to enslave the Israelites, he consulted three advisors. According to Sotah 11a, what happened to each of them perfectly matched the advice they gave. Balaam re...
The Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt because of the righteous women. According to Sotah 11b, Rav Avira taught that while the men had given up hope under Pharaoh's slavery, th...
Israel in Egypt, fruitful and multiplying, a thousand thousand and myriad myriads. And still, in God's eyes, like a single beloved child. That's the paradox this section of Aggadat...
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...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Sheni Ketuvim In the beginning God created etc. - To declare the might of the acts of creation to creatures, and to make it known to them...
"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord" (Psalm 112:1). The rabbis asked: what ultimately happens to him? And they landed on Ecclesiastes: "In the end, everything will be heard, fea...
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...
The full scope of Moses's argument against the angels is recorded in Shabbat 89a, and it is a masterclass in turning your opponent's own premises against them. Moses went through t...
The book of Proverbs throws out one of the great riddles of the Hebrew Bible. "Who has ascended to Heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in the hollows of his hands? Who ...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that in the future, all suffering will be revealed as good. Not philosophically. Experientially. You will bless God for your pain the same way you b...
There was an incident involving Miriam daughter of the baker, who was taken captive with her seven sons. The emperor took them and placed them behind seven partitions. He brought t...
"The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" (Psalm 110:1). This verse launches one of the most complex readings in Aggadat Bereshit, about how the Holy One loves and exalts ...
When the Song of Songs sings, "King Solomon made for him a palanquin" (Song of Songs 3:9), the sages of Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:2 hear something far beyond a royal carriage. The Ki...
Shabbat Shekalim arrives on the Shabbat before the month of Adar ends, the first of the four special Sabbaths that prepare the Jewish people for Passover. The Torah reading is brie...
“If it pleases the king, let it be written to eliminate them and I will weigh out ten thousand talents of silver by the hands of the king's craftsmen, to bring to the king's treasu...
A person trapped on a low spiritual level might assume that deep Torah understanding is beyond their reach. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says the opposite is true: the pathway from 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 ...
These are the generations of Aaron and Moses. [Betai Midrashot (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Third Chamber] Our rabbis taught: Brothers who are partners and who increased asse...
The Seder Olam reveals a pattern hidden in the calendar of sacred history: the most important events in Israel's story all cluster around one date, the fifteenth of Nisan. It began...
“In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Aḥashverosh, he had cast a pur, that is, the lot, before Haman for each day and for each month, to the tw...
The death of Moses is the most devastating scene in the Torah. And the Talmud in Sotah 13b expands it into something almost unbearable. Moses pleaded with God not to let him die. H...
This is the verse that unlocks the whole story. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the plain Hebrew leaves as silence: "For Aaron had seen Hur slain before him, and was afraid; a...
Moses reached for Pharaoh's crown because he was three years old and did not yet know fear. Landa's 1919 retelling takes a famous midrashic moment and makes the danger immediate. P...
. Another reading: “Comfort, oh comfort My people” (Isaiah 40:1) Said the Holy Blessed One: Who needs to be comforted? For one whose wife died, not the husband? Thus was Zion analo...
A Roman matrona once came to Rabbi Yosei bar Chalafta with a question that sounded innocent and was not. "In how many days did your God create the universe?" she asked. Rabbi Yosei...
“I remember my song in the night; I meditate with my heart, and my spirit searches” (Psalms 77:7). Rabbi Yehuda ben Rabbi Simon and Rabbi Aivu.58The text of the midrash (rabbinic i...
The essence of life comes from prayer. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov derives this from a single verse: "Prayer to the God of my life" (Psalms 42:9). Prayer is not merely an appeal to th...
The story of Moses on Mount Sinai offers a profound glimpse into this mystery, showing us not just what to pray, but how. The Book of Exodus tells us that Moses ascended Mount Sina...
When God commanded Israel to give a half-shekel for the census, Moses was confused. Not by the amount, half a shekel was nearly nothing, a laborer's loose change. What baffled him ...
When family reunites, the first thing out of the mouth is usually the story of what was survived. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Moses's account to Jethro in condensed form: "M...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that the pursuit of honor is a spiritual trap, and the only escape is through silence in the face of humiliation. When a person chases honor, they n...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that anyone who wants to taste the Or HaGanuz (אור הגנוז), the Hidden Light that God stored away from the first day of creation, must elevate the qu...
After the destruction of the Temple, Nebuzaradan, captain of the Babylonian guard under Nebuchadnezzar, found blood bubbling up from the ground in Jerusalem. According to Gittin 57...
The rabbis once overruled God. And God laughed. According to Bava Metzia 59b, the incident began with an argument about an oven. Rabbi Eliezer declared a certain oven ritually pure...
When the offering was completed (1 Chronicles 18:26), the midrash reads it through Song of Songs: the thread of crimson, the image of the veil that separated the holy from the prof...
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am He, I am the first, and I am the last as well" (Isaiah 48:12). God speaks with the full weight of eternity, before everythi...
(Exodus 12:1) "And the L–rd spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying": I might think that both Aaron and Moses were being addressed; it is, therefore, written (Exod...
The Torah actually grapples with this very question, and the answer, as you might expect, is layered and fascinating. Moses, standing before the burning bush, is tasked with leadin...
When the Torah sums up who stood before Pharaoh to demand Israel's release, it simply says these are they (Exodus 6:27). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 6:27) supplies the titles...
When the people again cried for water, the Holy One's instruction to Moses, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders (Exodus 17:5), is quietly pointed: Pass over before the people, and ta...
The tale begins when Moses, at the ripe old age of 67, leaves Ethiopia. Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, tells us this was the moment divinely appointed to liberate Israel from th...
Tractate Shabbat (folio 66, column 2) preserves something most modern readers will find startling: a rabbinic prescription against fever that is half incantation, half midrash. The...
The Holy One does not argue with Moses. He simply issues a new set of orders. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the dual commission: the Lord spake with Mosheh and with Aharon, and ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan locates Jethro's arrival at Israel's camp with unusual precision: "Jethro the father-in-law of Moses, and the sons of Moses, and his wife came to Moses a...
It's a direct confrontation, a symbolic smackdown, if you will. Pharaoh saw himself as a god, the supreme ruler of Egypt, unshakeable and all-powerful. But Shemot Rabbah draws a li...
“The king’s scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written in accordance with everything that Haman had commanded the king’s satraps, and the go...
