3,813 related texts · Page 70 of 80
The little shepherd boy who takes down the giant. But did you ever stop to think about why David was so determined to face him? It wasn't just bravery, or youthful exuberance. Acco...
It wasn't a sudden plunge, but a slow slide fueled by choices… and a little help from the King of Demons himself. According to Legends of the Jews, Solomon’s troubles began to snow...
We hear so much about the other tribes, their portions of the land, their heroes and villains. But Dan? They seem to fade into the background. Well, according to the Legends of the...
The one who visits to herald the coming of the Messiah. But his influence stretches far beyond that single night. According to tradition, Elijah wasn't just hanging around offering...
The story goes that after the destruction of the First Temple, the prophet Jeremiah found himself with a daunting task. He was told to bring the news to the Avot, the Patriarchs th...
I'm not talking about missing a concert – I mean sleeping for decades and waking up to a world completely transformed. The Talmud (Ta'anit 69b) tells us of several people who exper...
And the Jewish tradition has some pretty incredible answers. According to the Legends of the Jews, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Ezra's leadership to rebuild the Temple...
That’s where we find Esther in the story, right after that fateful banquet. King Ahasuerus, still riding high on the wine and the atmosphere, repeats his offer. He's practically be...
The historian Josephus, in his work Against Apion, gives us some insight into this very question. He highlights how Jewish law, as he understood it, navigated the delicate balance ...
The mountain was on fire, the sky had turned black, and every person in the camp was convinced they were about to die. That was the scene at Mount Sinai when God spoke the Ten Comm...
Twelve men walked into the land of Canaan. Twelve came back. And with a few terrified words, they nearly destroyed an entire nation's future. Moses had brought the Israelites to th...
A donkey saw an angel before the greatest prophet of the ancient Near East did. That detail alone tells you everything about the story of Balaam. Balak, the king of Moab, was terri...
Balaam could not curse Israel. So he taught their enemies how to make Israel curse itself. Before leaving, the prophet gave Balak and the Midianite princes a final piece of advice:...
It’s a question that’s haunted mystics and theologians for millennia. And the answer, as we find in Jewish tradition, is both breathtakingly beautiful and terrifyingly destructive....
We often hear about the benevolent angels, the messengers, the healers. But what about the ones who fall from grace? Let's talk about Dumah. According to Jewish tradition, Dumah wa...
That’s the idea behind a powerful myth found in the Zohar (l:4b-5a), the central text of Kabbalah. It speaks of God constantly creating new heavens and a new earth. But where does ...
But what's happening on high? Well, according to a beautiful passage in the Zohar (2:40b-41a), the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, God isn't just observing. God's hosting a ...
The Zohar, meaning "splendor" or "radiance," is the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, of Kabbalah. It's a sprawling, enigmatic work filled with secrets, allegories, and dazzli...
It’s not your average velvet-rope situation. This one involves angels, mystical ascents, and some serious spiritual prerequisites. We're diving into the world of the Merkabah, the ...
And it’s been guarded fiercely. The text recounts a divine voice, almost exasperated, saying, "Nay, My servitors, nay, My servants, trouble Me not in this matter!" It's like God is...
Holding admiration and critique in the same breath. Well, it's a dance that Jewish scholars have been doing for centuries. Take the author of the Mitpachat Sefarim, for instance. H...
That tension between honoring their wisdom and standing your ground. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially in the context of Jewish scholarship and legal interpret...
In Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, a profound work of Jewish thought, we find a powerful assertion: that God built the world on justice. Not just any kind of justice, but a "straight an...
We pour our energy into the fleeting, the temporary. But what about the big questions? What if, just for a little while, we shifted our focus? What if we dared to ask ourselves: Wh...
That’s kind of what we're up against when we talk about the Sefirot (the ten attributes or emanations through which God reveals Himself). We've been exploring how these Sefirot app...
Jewish tradition offers a fascinating way to understand this feeling, especially when it comes to encountering the Divine. It all comes down to light. Not just any light, but the o...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a companion volume to the Zohar—one of the central works of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism—certainly thinks so. In one of its sections, the 48th ...
Maybe you should. The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a cornerstone of Kabbalistic thought, makes a pretty bold statement: because the People of Israel have guarded the covenant...
Jewish mysticism wrestles with this very idea – the nature of perception, of revelation, and how we encounter the Divine. to a fascinating passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, grapples with that very feeling. It explores what happens when a truly great soul departs this world, specificall...
But according to the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, it holds the key to understanding exile, blessing, and ultimately, redemption. When the prophet saw Israel in exile, what ga...
Sometimes, unlocking the deeper meanings requires a little… detective work. to a fascinating passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 92 and see what mysteries we can unravel...
It all revolves around the story of Jonah. We know the story: he runs from God, gets swallowed by a whale (or a giant fish, depending on the version), and eventually repents and fu...
It’s like unlocking a hidden code to understanding… well, everything. Today, let's crack open Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 109. Don't worry, you don't need to be a Kabbalist t...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, offers a fascinating perspective. It tells us that the offerings, the qorbanot – literally, the means of drawing ...
The mystical tradition of Kabbalah is all about finding those secrets, and the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a companion to the Zohar, is packed with them.Yes, a sword! The te...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later part of the Zohar, one of the central works of Kabbalah, hints at something truly profound about the Torah's essence. It speaks of a ...
It’s a question that the mystical tradition of Judaism, particularly the Zohar, has pondered for centuries. And in Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 291, we find a fascinating, alm...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Va'era with a question about the nature of prophecy. God tells Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jac...
R. Shimon b. Azzai said: I do not come to detract from my master's words, but to add to them, viz.: Not to Moses alone did He speak in the merit of Israel, but to all of the prophe...
And thus do you find with Baruch the soon of Neriah, who complained before the L–rd, (Ibid. 45:3) "You (Baruch) say: Woe unto me, the L–rd has added grief to my pain!" (You say:) W...
Rabbi Eliezer Hakappar Berebbi posed a rhetorical question that reveals something extraordinary about the Israelites during their centuries of slavery in Egypt. Did Israel not poss...
Moses told the Israelites to take a lamb for the Passover offering, and they were terrified. The Mekhilta preserves their fearful protest: "Will we slaughter the abomination of Egy...
The Torah's instructions for eating the Passover lamb include a phrase that seems straightforward but contains a legal depth charge: "with matzoth and maror shall they eat it" (Exo...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael draws attention to a striking pattern woven through Scripture: when the prophets speak, they echo words that God already uttered long before. The chai...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic commentary on Exodus, arrives at one of the most dramatic prophetic verses in all of Scripture: "The glory of the Lord shall appear, and all flesh will ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, examines a soaring promise from the prophet Isaiah: "Then you will rejoice in the Lord, and I will 'ride' you on the heights of the e...
"for they said: We are all dying": They said: It is not as Moses said (11:5) "and every first-born in the land of Egypt will die." They had thought that if one had four or five son...
