3,813 related texts · Page 64 of 80
(Lev. 1:1:) “Then [the Lord] called unto Moses.” This text is related (to Prov. 29:23), “One's pride will bring him low, but the low in spirit will obtain honor.” Whenever anyone p...
(Numb. 3:15:) “Enroll the Children of Levi….” This text is related (to Ps. 68:7), “God causes individuals to dwell in a home.” A certain matron78Lat.: matrona. asked R. Jose ben Ha...
"And it was on the day that Moses had finished" (Numbers 7:1). What is written above the matter? "May the Lord bless you and keep you" (Numbers 6:24). Rabbi Yehoshua of Sakhnin sai...
"And it was on the day that Moses had finished" (Numbers 7:1). Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, made conditions with Israel before they left Egypt, that ...
(Numb. 20:14:) “Then Moses sent messengers [from Kadesh unto the king of Edom], ‘Thus says your brother Israel….’” This text is related (to Ps. 15:3), “nor takes up a reproach agai...
See I, etc. (Deuteronomy 11:26): This is what is stated in the verse (Job 36:10-12), "He opens their ear by discipline, etc. If they will listen and serve, they shall spend their d...
When you go out to war and you see horse and chariot, a people more numerous than you (Deuteronomy 20:1): This is what is stated in the verse (Proverbs 21:31), "The horse is readie...
Nebuchadnezzar wants to kill Ben Sira. He's just not very subtle about it. "I have a friend I hate," the king says, barely disguising his intentions, "and I want to kill him with f...
Jewish tradition holds that a handful of people never died. They walked into Gan Eden - the Garden of Eden - while still alive, bypassing death entirely. The Alphabet of Ben Sira, ...
How many people were alive before the flood? According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, an exact census was taken...
When the people of Babylon decided to build a tower reaching heaven, everyone had to make bricks. Everyone had to write their name on their brick. But twelve men refused. According...
The builders of the Tower of Babel were not just confused. They were transformed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gast...
Abraham's entire family were idol-makers. They carved images and sold them in the streets. But Abraham ran the stall like a philosopher. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a...
After Simeon and Levi destroyed the men of Shechem, a great terror fell over every city in the region. The nations said: "If two sons of Jacob could exterminate an entire town, wha...
The contest before King Darius began with the first prince arguing that nothing on earth is as powerful as a king. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew c...
We know that Noah and his family were spared, a fresh start for humanity. But, well, it didn't take long for things to go sideways again, did it? According to Ginzberg’s retelling ...
It all revolves around Joseph’s coat – that infamous coat of many colors. The story goes that after selling Joseph into slavery, Jacob's sons were immediately overcome with regret....
In the stories surrounding Joseph, the son of Jacob, we find just that kind of mystical insight woven into the narrative. Remember the story? Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt by ...
More often, it's a slow, insidious creep. The story of the Israelite enslavement in Egypt, as told in the Book of Exodus, is a stark illustration of this. But the Legends of the Je...
Like the challenges in front of you are just... too big? Well, imagine being a spy sent into enemy territory, and the enemy is a trio of giants. That's the situation the Israelites...
We all know the story of the twelve spies sent by Moses to scout out the promised land. But did you know there was a real battle of wills between them, a clash that went beyond jus...
The ancient Jewish sages certainly thought so. Take the story of Korah, a name synonymous with rebellion. His very name, they believed, was a clue to his tragic fate. The Torah tel...
Our story begins with the Moabites, watching with growing unease as Israel triumphs over their enemies. But they knew it wasn't just military might at play. It was... something els...
Talk about a cosmic joke! The Megillah, the Scroll of Esther, gives us the basic story. But the Legends of the Jews, that wonderful collection of midrash (rabbinic interpretive com...
Josephus ends his twenty-volume history of the Jewish people with a list, a boast, and a confession. The list is of every high priest from Aaron to the destruction of the Temple. T...
You're not alone. But what is that "realness" we experience in dreams? In a dream, one moment you're flying, the next you're talking to your long-lost great aunt Mildred in a field...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a profound and mystical commentary on the Zohar itself, warns us about precisely that. It speaks of the dire consequences of separating "the ...
In Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 76, we find ourselves on a journey to understand something profound using… measurements. Intriguing. The text starts with a seemingly simple ph...
We're diving into Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 96, and trust me, it's going to get a little… esoteric. The passage starts with a curious observation. It points to the story of...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev addresses a question that Nachmanides raised about Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream: if Joseph predicted seven years of famine but the f...
Why does God sometimes tell Moses to "go to Pharaoh" (lekh el Par'oh) and other times to "come to Pharaoh" (bo el Par'oh)? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev discovers two entirely ...
"Yitro, the priest of Midian, heard all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel" (Exodus 18:1). What exactly did Yitro hear? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says he hea...
"After two years' time, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile" (Genesis 41:1). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, in Parashat Miketz, turns Pharaoh's dream into a warning abou...
The Hebrew word "nacham" appears in the Exodus narrative, and the Mekhilta pauses to clarify its meaning. While "nacham" can mean "to comfort" or "to regret" in other contexts, her...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a remarkable teaching by Shimon of Kitron about why God split the Red Sea for Israel. The answer has nothing to do with Moses raising his st...
Rabbi Eliezer HaModai preserved one of the most extraordinary statements God ever made about the people of Israel. When Moses cried out at the Red Sea, God responded: "Why do you c...
The opening words of the Song of the Sea — "I shall sing to the Lord" (Exodus 15:1) — prompt the Mekhilta to reflect on what makes God worthy of song. The phrase that follows in th...
The Mekhilta continues its detailed mapping of the Egyptian punishments at the Red Sea, this time connecting the drowning to the specific suffering of slave labor. The Egyptians ha...
The Torah says that God tested Israel at Marah with the word "nisahu." But what does this word actually mean? Two rabbis offered completely different readings. Rabbi Yehoshua argue...
When the prophet Elijah returns at the end of days, he will not come empty-handed. According to the Mekhilta, he will bring three sacred objects that were hidden away centuries ago...
Moses stood on the summit of Mount Nebo, and God showed him the entire Land of Israel. The Torah specifies that he saw "the valley of Jericho" (Deuteronomy 34:3). The Mekhilta find...
Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, had seven names — and the Mekhilta explains that each name encoded a different aspect of his extraordinary character. Yether — because he "added...
Three things were given conditionally: Eretz Yisrael, the Temple, and the kingdom of the house of David, but not the Torah scroll and the covenant of Aaron, which were not given co...
The Mekhilta raises a fascinating question about the relationship between laws that existed before the giving of the Torah at Sinai and those that were introduced at Sinai itself. ...
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...
King David certainly knew that feeling. In the Midrash Tehillim, a beautiful collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, we find a powerful meditation on the verse, "Many ...
In Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, the text wrestles with this very idea, using the term "Cushite" as a lens to understand beauty,...
That feeling sits at the heart of a fascinating interpretation in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Psalms. It focuses on Psalm 45, which begin...
