3,813 related texts · Page 71 of 80
The Torah records a striking detail about the Israelites' departure from Egypt: "and provisions, too, they could not make for themselves." The Mekhilta reads this not as a statemen...
God never let Israel go into exile alone. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) from approximately the 3rd century CE, tracks the She...
And do not wonder at this phenomenon. For it is written (II Kings 6:5-6) "As one of them was felling a tree, the ax blade fell into the water, and he cried out 'Alas, master, (Elis...
And, what is more, with (the casket of) Jacob there went up the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his household, while with Joseph there went up the ark and the Shechinah and t...
Joseph spoke a prophecy to his brothers before he died: "God will surely remember you" (Genesis 50:25). The Hebrew uses a doubled verb — "pakod yifkod" — and the Mekhilta finds in ...
The Torah places Israel's encampment "between Migdol and the sea," and the Mekhilta finds layers of meaning in this geography. The word "Migdol" sounds like "gedulah" — greatness. ...
Now the nations will clang to us like a bell, saying: Now if these (Jews), who were under their thumb, they let go and they left, why should we send to Aram Naharayim and to Aram T...
(Ibid. 14:6) "and he took his people with him": He "took" them with words, saying to them. It is the way of kings to be leaders from the rear and to have their armies preceding the...
Variantly: "Stand ready to see the salvation of the L–rd": They: When? Moses: Tomorrow. They: Moses our teacher we do not have the strength to wait. At that time Moses prayed and t...
R. Meir says: "the L–rd will war for you": He will perform for you miracles and (acts of) strength, and you will stand still. Israel asked Moses our teacher: "What can we do?" He a...
Rabbi Avshalom the Elder told a parable to explain why God responded to Moses' extended prayer at the Red Sea with what seemed like impatience. The parable captures the tenderness ...
R. Acha says: The Holy One Blessed be He said: If not for your outcry, I would have destroyed them for the idolatry in their midst, viz. (Zechariah 10:11) "And tzarah crossed the s...
Others say: The faith that they had in Me suffices for Me to split the sea for them. They did not say to Moses: How can we go out to the desert without food? But they believed in M...
The Mekhilta draws a parallel that cuts both ways. In the previous passage, the rabbis established that believing in Moses equals believing in God. Now they demonstrate the reverse...
Great is the faith wherein Israel believed in Him who spoke and brought the world into being; for in reward for Israel's belief in the L–rd, the Shechinah reposed upon them and the...
Rabbi Nechemiah teaches a principle of extraordinary generosity. If a person takes upon himself even a single mitzvah in true faith, that person is worthy of having the Holy Spirit...
And thus do you find with the men of Sodom, that with what they vaunted themselves before Him, He exacted punishment of them. As it is written (Iyyov 28:5-8) "A land from which bre...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "this people whom You have redeemed": For all the world is Yours, and You have no people but Israel, viz. (Isaiah 43:21) "This people have I created for Myself, etc...
Once, Rebbi was sitting and expounding that one woman bore sixty ten thousands, when a disciple interjected: Rebbi, who is greater, the world or the tzaddik (a righteous person)? R...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "All the inhabitants of Canaan melted ('namogu')": When the inhabitants of Canaan heard that the Holy One Blessed be He had said to Moses (Devarim 20:16-17) "But fr...
The Mekhilta reads the phrase "By the greatness of Your arm they were struck still as stone" as describing a specific historical moment. When the Israelites emerged from the Red Se...
The Mekhilta asks a practical question that most readers skip right over. The verse says Miriam took "the timbrel in her hand" and led the women in song after the crossing of the R...
R. Eliezer says: They journeyed by word of the L–rd. For in two or three places we find that they journeyed by word of the L–rd; and here, too, they journeyed by word of the L–rd. ...
R. Shimon b. Gamliel says: Come and see how different are the ways of the Holy One Blessed be He from the ways of flesh and blood. (A man of) flesh and blood heals bitter with swee...
"All of the illness which I placed in Egypt I will not place upon you" — God promised the Israelites immunity from the plagues that devastated their former oppressors. But then the...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws a sweeping conclusion from the verse "and you will know that the L-rd took you out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 16:6). The teaching here is not...
Because they were wont to go out in the morning (to gather the manna), they said to him: Moses, our teacher, shall we go out in the morning? Moses: "Eat it today." They: Since we d...
R. Yossi says: Israel ate the manna for fifty-four years, forty years in the lifetime of Moses and fourteen years after his death, it being written "And the children of Israel ate ...
R. Yossi b. Chalafta says: "And Amalek came": He came with counsel. We are hereby apprised that he gathered all the nations together and said to them: Come and help me against Isra...
When Moses shattered the two tablets of the covenant at the foot of Mount Sinai, something extraordinary happened to the sacred letters engraved upon them. According to the Mekhilt...
How seriously should a student revere a teacher? The Mekhilta answers with a statement that sounds almost blasphemous: the fear of one's teacher is to be equated with the fear of H...
The Mekhilta draws a direct parallel between Moses' raised hands and another puzzling episode: the bronze serpent in the wilderness. When poisonous snakes attacked the Israelites, ...
Rabbi Eliezer interpreted the mysterious rise and fall of Israel's fortunes during the battle with Amalek. When Moses raised his hands toward heaven, Israel grew strong. When he lo...
"and his hands were steadfast until the sun set": We are hereby apprised that he was (occupied with prayer and) fasting (until sunset). These are the words of R. Yehoshua. R. Eliez...
The verse says Moses' hands were "steadfast" during the battle against Amalek (Exodus 17:12). The Mekhilta reads that single word as a double testimony — each of Moses' two hands t...
Moses refused to accept the verdict. After God told him he could not enter the Promised Land as a king or as a commoner, he came back with yet another proposal — each one more desp...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai examined the verse in which God tells Moses he will not cross the Jordan, and he declared: this verse is not needed. The Torah already states the same thing...
R. Chanina b. Akiva says: "More beloved" was the seeing of our father Abraham than that of Moses. For Abraham was not caused to exert himself whereas Moses was. What is stated of A...
The Mekhilta continues cataloguing everything God showed Moses from Mount Pisgah. The question this time: how do we know that God showed him even the graves of the forefathers? The...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael explores a tradition about what God revealed to Moses at the end of his life. Among the many visions granted to Moses before his death, the rabbis ask...
The Torah's commandment to erase the memory of Amalek reaches to the farthest limit of destruction. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael explains the phrase (Exodus 17:14) "from under the...
When Amalek attacked Israel in the wilderness, Moses did not simply organize a military response. He turned to God with an argument that struck at the heart of the divine project i...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered his own version of Moses' prayer during the battle with Amalek, and it carried an even more cosmic weight than Rabbi Yehoshua's teaching. Moses said be...
Variantly: "from generation to generation": R. Yehoshua says: "from generation"—the life of this world: "to generation"—the life of the world to come. R. Eliezer Hamodai says: from...
When Jethro heard "that the Lord had taken Israel out of Egypt," the Mekhilta draws a remarkable conclusion: the Exodus is not just one miracle among many. It is the miracle agains...
R. Yossi says: G–d forbid that tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous) should be lax in circumcision for even a short while, but Moses expounded: Shall he circumcise (his so...
"and he bowed down to him and he kissed him": I would not know who bowed down to whom or who kissed whom, were it not written (Ibid.) "And they greeted, a man, his neighbor, in pea...
