4,543 related texts · 51 related myths · Page 3 of 95
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 ...
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...
Adam was created in twelve hours. According to Sanhedrin 38b, Rabbi Yohanan bar Hanina mapped each hour of the first man's first day onto a specific stage of formation. In the firs...
Berurya, one of the sharpest minds in all of Talmudic literature, once caught a student studying Torah in a whisper. She kicked him and said: Scripture teaches that Torah must be "...
In the years after the fall of the holy city, a mother named Hannah and her seven sons were thrown into prison. One by one, in order of their ages, the tyrant brought the boys befo...
The order was given; now it is done. Aharon lifts the rod, strikes the Nile in full view of Pharaoh and his court, and the whole river turns (Exodus 7:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan o...
"She took for him a wicker basket…" Why wicker, specifically? It's a fair question. Rabbi Elazar offers a powerful answer: "Because for the righteous, their property is dearer to t...
That feeling isn't new. It goes all the way back to Moses and Aaron facing down Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. They’re walking into the lion's den, asking the most powerful ruler o...
Shemot Rabbah turns to Moses Set as God Before Pharaoh and Aaron as His Prophet. The story takes an unexpected turn. We're transported to the time of King Solomon and the construct...
Moses sure did. You’re tending sheep in the desert, happily married, a father. Then, BOOM! God appears in a burning bush and tells you to go liberate an entire nation from slavery....
"And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt" (Exodus 1:1). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk opens his commentary on Parashat Shemot with a strange claim: a pers...
What was Yithro's role in Midian before he joined Moses and the people of Israel? The verse calls him "the Cohein of Midian" (Exodus 18:1), and two rabbis disagreed about what "Coh...
Before Moses ever steps into Pharaoh's throne room, God rehearses the scene with him in advance. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the expansive Aramaic paraphrase, preserves the staging: th...
The Torah gives Levi's lifespan as a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:16), but Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds a single clause that changes the entire feel of the verse. Levi, ...
By the eighth plague, the Torah's language has shifted. Before, it was Pharaoh who hardened his own heart. Now, the Lord takes a share of the responsibility. "The Lord spake to Mos...
Pharaoh's patience finally breaks. "Pharoh said to him, Go from me. Beware that thou add not to see my face to speak before me one of these words that are so hard: for in the day t...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in what the Hebrew leaves implicit: why Moses's hands grew heavy. "The hands of Moses were heavy, because the conflict was prolonged till the morro...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the moment Jethro's role changed from guest to advisor: "The father-in-law of Moses saw how much he toiled and laboured for his people; and he sa...
God's instruction to Moses at Sinai comes with a precise choreography. "Go down, and then ascend, thou and Aaron with thee; but let not the priests or the people directly come up t...
The air is thick with the aroma of roasting meat, the sounds of laughter and song echoing through the desert. The Israelites, newly freed from slavery in Egypt, are gathered togeth...
(Exodus 15:20) introduces Miriam with a curious title: "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." The Mekhilta immediately spots the problem. Miriam was the sister of both Aaron and Mo...
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...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael describes the extraordinary reception that Jethro received when he arrived at the Israelite camp in the wilderness. The verse states simply: "And Mose...
This week, The verse reads, "And they said: Is it only with Moses that the L-rd has spoken?" Ouch. That stings, doesn't it? It's like they're saying, "Hey, what about us? Have we n...
When Moses and Aaron walked into Pharaoh's palace to demand the release of the Israelite slaves, they were not entering a building. They were entering a fortress designed to intimi...
The Torah tells the Midian episode in a sentence. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:21) tells it in a small novel. "But when Reuel knew that Mosheh had fled from before Phara...
Pharaoh, utterly unmoved by Moses and Aaron's plea to let the people go, didn't just say no. He doubled down. On the very day of that fateful audience, he issued a decree. The Isra...
The scene is brief, bloody, and extraordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it with theological clarity: Zipporah took a stone, and circumcised the foreskin of Gershom her son,...
A former priest of seven gods gives the first blessing-of-the-Name uttered by a convert. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records Jethro's words: "Blessed be the Name of the Lord who hat...
When the people demanded a golden idol from Aaron, they had to find gold. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves a startling detail not in the plain Hebrew: their wives denied themselves...
The day Moses and Aaron made their grand entrance was actually Pharaoh's birthday. Can you imagine the pomp and circumstance? He was surrounded by kings from all corners of the ear...
When Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, heard about everything that had happened at the Red Sea, he made a remarkable declaration: "Now I know that greater is the Lord than all th...
" R. Shimon b. Menassia points out that Moses himself was frightened by the word "suddenly" earlier in Exodus (3:6). Here, it's God speaking suddenly. It creates a sense of urgency...
Pharaoh woke up sweating. In his sleep he had seen a balance. On one pan, all the land of Mizraim, the pyramids, the treasuries, the Nile itself, the whole weight of an empire. On ...
The third plague is lice, venomous insects that emerge from the dust. Again Aharon must wield the rod, not Moses. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 8:12) gives the breathtaking rea...
Pharaoh, had a problem. He was terrified of the growing Israelite population in Egypt. His solution? A truly horrific decree: kill all newborn Hebrew boys. But even the cruelest pl...
Remember Pharaoh's terrible decree? He ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed. But Jochebed, one of the midwives, defied him. She refused to participate in this horrific act,...
The Legends of the Jews, that monumental work by Louis Ginzberg, gives us some fascinating insights. Ginzberg compiles centuries of Jewish tradition to paint a richer picture than ...
The Torah tells us that Moses was born, hidden, found by Pharaoh's daughter, and eventually fled to Midian. Targum Jonathan fills in the gaps with miracles, secret identities, and ...
It’s a moment of raw honesty from Moses himself. The story begins after Moses relays God's message to Pharaoh – the one demanding freedom for the Israelites. Instead of freedom, Ph...
The ancient Rabbis certainly thought about that feeling, and they found it in a surprising place: the showdown between Moses and Pharaoh's magicians. The verse in (Exodus 7:12) tel...
(Exodus 12:43) "And the L–rd said to Moses and Aaron": There are some sections (in the Torah) which are generic in the beginning and specific after, and some which are specific in ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 14:27) adds a disturbing line to the drowning. Moses stretches his hand, the sea returns at morning, the Mizraee flee from the oncoming waves....
The Torah records a transformation at the Red Sea: "And the people feared the Lord" (Exodus 14:31). The Mekhilta notes the significance of the word "feared." In the past, the Israe...
Moses and Aaron stood before the entire assembly of Israel in the wilderness and made a promise that must have sounded almost too good to believe: "In the evening you will know tha...
A small textual puzzle in the book of Exodus reveals something important about Moses' family. The verse states (Exodus 18:5): "And Yithro, Moses' father-in-law, and his sons and hi...
Jethro arrived at the Israelite camp and immediately noticed something troubling. His son-in-law Moses sat from morning until evening while the entire nation stood in a line before...
On the night of the Exodus, while the entire nation of Israel was loading Egyptian gold and silver, Moses was doing something else. According to Sotah 13a, he was searching for the...
