3,813 related texts · Page 18 of 80
The verse in question is (Song of Songs 2:17): "Until the day is great and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a fawn on the cleft mountains.” Now, on the ...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. In Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Song of Songs, we find a powerful, poignant lesson woven into the seeming...
“He severed in his enflamed wrath all the horn of Israel; He retracted His right hand from before the enemy. He burned in Jacob like flaming fire, consuming all around” (Lamentatio...
“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:66).“May You pursue them in wrath and destroy them” – Jeremiah said: “May you pur...
“There was a Judean man in the Shushan citadel, and his name was Mordekhai, son of Ya'ir, son of Shimi, son of Kish, a Benjamite” (Esther 2:5).“There was a Judean man [ish] in the ...
It is written: “And set it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14), this is one of four righteous people to whom a portent was given; two sensed it and two did not sense it. A porten...
It’s a question that surfaces, quite literally, when we read the story of the Exodus. We know Pharaoh's army drowned in the Red Sea. As it says in (Exodus 15:1), "Horse and driver ...
2:16). Was it proper for this righteous man to go to the home of an idolater? After all, since the Holy one, blessed be He, detests idolatry, why did he permit Moses to go to a pla...
And Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father-in-law (Exod. 4:18). Scripture says elsewhere in reference to this verse: A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for ...
And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass (Exod. 4:20). The singular form ass is employed here, as when a man says: “Lead out the animal” (though he may have m...
Therefore, say unto the children of Israel: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out” (Exod. 6:6). The word therefore implies that an oath was involved, as it is said: Therefore I ...
And they said: “The God of the Hebrews hath met with us” (Exod. 5:3). Moses and Aaron declared: Perhaps You will say we altered Your words when we told him: “Thus said the Lord, th...
See, I have set thee in God’s stead to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet (Exod. 7:1). Just as the lecturer sits and lectures, and the interpreter explains his wor...
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down (Exod. 32:1). The word boshesh (“delayed”) indicates that it was the sixth hour of the day. Forty thousand people had assemb...
(Lev. 16:1:) “Now the Lord spoke unto Moses after the death [of Aaron's two sons].” This is what Elihu said (to Job 37:1), “At this also my heart trembles and leaps.” Elihu was obs...
"shall you take": What is the intent of this? (i.e., it seems redundant.) It is written (Devarim 16:2) "And you shall slaughter the Pesach (Passover) for the L–rd your G–d, sheep a...
R. Yonathan says: sheep for the Pesach (Passover) and cattle for the chagigah. You say this, but perhaps (the meaning is) both for the Pesach? And how would I understand (Exodus 12...
The Mekhilta uncovers a contradiction in the Torah's timeline that forces a radical rethinking of when the Passover sacrifice actually happened. Deuteronomy commands, "There shall ...
The Torah commands: "The entire congregation of Israel shall offer it" (Exodus 12:47). The Mekhilta asks why this verse is necessary at all, given that the Torah already instructed...
"This day you go out in the month of Aviv" (Exodus 13:3) — a verse that seems to state the obvious. Of course Israel left in the month of Aviv (spring). The Torah already told us t...
(Exodus 14:20) "And one did not come near another the entire night": Scripture hereby apprises us that a standing Egyptian could not sit down, and a sitting one could not stand up....
(Exodus 15:26) "And He said: If pay heed, you shall pay heed": From here it was derived: If a man paid heed to one mitzvah, he is caused to pay heed to many mitzvot (commandments)h...
Variantly: "on the fifteenth day of the second month": Why is the day mentioned? To know on which day the manna descended for Israel. Israel ate from the wafer that they took out o...
The Torah records the arrival at Sinai with a precise phrase (Exodus 19:1): "On this day they came to the desert of Sinai." The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael identifies the exact date ...
(Exodus 19:18) "And the whole of Mount Sinai smoked": I might think the place of the divine Presence alone; it is, therefore, written "the whole." "for the L–rd had come down upon ...
(Exodus 22:20) commands: "And a stranger you shall not afflict and you shall not oppress him." The Mekhilta identifies two distinct prohibitions within this verse. "You shall not a...
The Hebrew Bible says God will "pass through" Egypt on the night of the Passover (Exodus 12:12). Targum Onkelos changes this to God will "become revealed in" Egypt. God does not tr...
"I am God, your Lord, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 20:2). Targum Onkelos translates the Ten Commandments with almost no deviation from the Hebrew—a remarkable ...
According to Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, an angel whisked Moses away – not just across the border, mind you, but forty days' journey away! That’s a serious relocati...
The Jewish tradition offers a fascinating answer, one beautifully illustrated in the story of Moses, the great lawgiver. Before he led the Israelites out of Egypt, before the burni...
We find the story in Numbers 25, where Phinehas takes decisive action to stop a plague ravaging the Israelites. But as much as God approved of his act, not everyone was thrilled. A...
The Mekhilta poses a question about the hierarchy of respect: how much honor should a person show to a friend? The answer comes from one of the most revealing moments between Moses...
Jewish tradition understands that feeling, and even gives it a name: fiery waves. These aren't just any ordinary ocean waves, mind you. These are the ones, we're told in the Talmud...
The story of Moses begins with an act of unimaginable cruelty. Pharaoh, fearing the growing number of Israelites, issued a horrifying decree: "Every boy that is born you shall thro...
And Joseph made ready his chariot (Gen. 46:29). R. Yudan said in the name of R. Aibu: Two men were accorded more homage than any other men in all the world; they were Jethro and Ja...
It's easy to think of him as simply a messenger, a conduit for God's will. But the Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text from around the 2nd century BCE, paints a picture of Moses t...
We all know the broad strokes: slavery in Egypt, Moses leading his people to freedom, the parting of the Red Sea. But sometimes, the details get lost in the grandeur. The Book of J...
Today, we're diving into a fascinating chapter from the Book of Jasher, a non-canonical Jewish text that elaborates on stories from the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, we're looking at...
Following the pestilence, God instructs Moses and Elazar, the son of Aaron the priest, to take a census. A head count of the entire Israelite community, specifically those twenty y...
At nearly nine meters long, the Temple Scroll (Megillat HaMikdash, מגילת המקדש) is the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found in Cave 11, it may date from the late 2nd century ...
Nimrod was not merely a tyrant. He was the seed of the world's first false religion. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses G...
Why did God Himself attend to the burial of Moses? Because of what Moses had done decades earlier in Egypt, when everyone else was busy loading up silver and gold for the exodus. W...
Before the tenth plague struck, God executed judgment on every idol in Egypt. Stone gods shattered into fragments. Wooden gods rotted to dust. Idols of silver, brass, iron, and lea...
Amram, Moses’s father, wasn't just any man. He was a skilled doctor, so renowned that he served Pharaoh himself! The text in Tree of Souls tells us of his wisdom, and of God's hand...
It's a tale of ambition, cunning, and a whole lot of grave-robbing... or, well, almost. Our story begins not in Egypt, but in the land of Shinar. There lived a man named Rakyon – m...
It's easy to focus on the big battles and powerful leaders, but sometimes the most profound changes come from the courage of ordinary people. Today, we're going to delve into one s...
To his right sits his queen, Alfar’anit. And to his left? His daughter, Bithiah, with a three-year-old Moses on her lap. Now, this isn’t just any toddler. In a moment of pure, unfi...
It’s a story ripe with tension, a hero in the making, and a glimpse into the early acts that shaped one of the most pivotal figures in Jewish history. According to Legends of the J...
