3,050 related texts · Page 36 of 64
The generation of the Flood earned their destruction through arrogance. According to Sanhedrin 108a, God gave them 120 years of warning. They spent those years mocking Noah. The Sa...
Life inside the ark was not paradise. According to Sanhedrin 108b, Noah and his family worked around the clock to keep every animal alive—and one feeding mistake nearly cost Noah h...
Most of the month of Adar had passed, and still no rain. The fields were cracking. The people of Israel sent a desperate message to Choni HaMe'aggel—Choni the Circle-Drawer: pray f...
Deborah the prophetess did something no other judge in Israel had done — she held court outdoors, beneath a palm tree. The Yalkut Shimoni on Nach explains exactly why, and the reas...
In a compact but deeply layered teaching from the Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 533, Rabbi Natan and Rabbi Acha transmit a tradition in the name of Rabbi Simon that uses gematria — the sy...
It was said before Abraham was born. Nimrod was a heretic concerning the truth of the lord blessed be he. He was conceited and he said that he himself was a God. And the people of ...
Short note of the destruction of Bet-Tur through the axle of the waggon. They used to plant trees on the birth of a child and afterwards used them at its wedding. These were once c...
When the prophet Isaiah prayed for a sign to confirm that King Hezekiah would recover from his illness, God performed one of the most spectacular miracles in all of scripture: the ...
R. Eleazar b. Shimeon, who was appointed an official of the government, was accustomed to catch thieves in a very clever way when he found them drinking very heavily in the drinkin...
Rabbi Akiba was standing by the shore when he witnessed something terrible. A man — someone Rabbi Akiba knew — fell into the sea. The waves swallowed him instantly. One moment he w...
Story of the son of R. Reuben the Libellarius to whom the angel of death appeared in the form of an old man at the wedding festivities. He was treated with great respect on the adv...
Two men stand before the heavenly court. Both honored their fathers. Both are judged. One goes to Paradise. The other to Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)....
Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), once served food to Rabbi Yehoshua with his own hands. He stood and poured wine for his guest as though he w...
R. Shimeon b. Yob ai prevented tribulations overtaking the world and therefore no rainbows appeared to warn it of calamity. The prophet Elijah and R. Joshua b. Levi met him and he ...
R. Ishmael and R. Elazar b. Azaryah did not act uni- alike while reciting prayers, in order that the pupils should not follow the way of one alone, as they would have done if they ...
10. Rich man sent his son far away to trade. In his absence, the old man died and left all his property in the hands of a slave. When the son returned, the slave claimed to be the ...
A min (מין) — the rabbinic term for a heretic or sectarian — once confronted Gaboha with a challenge that strikes at the heart of Jewish faith. "You claim that God will raise the d...
Destruction of Bet Tur. Gittin, f. 57 a. Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), f. 17 b. Rosh Hashana, f. 18 b. Taanit, 26 b, 29 a. Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) Taa...
When the Romans executed the Ten Martyrs — the greatest sages of Israel — two of the first to die were Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi (prince) of the Sanhedrin, and Rabbi Ishm...
The Prophet Elijah, who never died but was taken up to Heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11), was known to appear to the righteous in moments of great need. One such visit was...
The birth of Moses was no ordinary event. According to the ancient chronicles preserved in Jerahmeel and the writings of Josephus, the arrival of Israel's greatest prophet was prec...
The story of Solomon's daughter and the bastard — the mamzer — is one of the most poignant tales in rabbinic literature. The Midrash (Tanhuma, Introduction) tells how Solomon, desp...
A man was accused of a crime he did not commit. He faced execution, disgrace, and the destruction of his family's name. His friend, knowing the truth — knowing the accused man was ...
A Jewish sage was challenged to a public contest against a pagan wizard-priest — a battle of spiritual power that would determine, in the eyes of the watching crowd, whose god was ...
Three brothers set out on a journey — and encountered a witch who tested them with riddles, tricks, and dark magic. The tale, preserved in Jewish and comparative folklore collectio...
Dreams have at all times and among all peoples received much attention. In the youth of a nation, as in the youth of an individual, dreams are so vivid that they appear to be hardl...
The cherub represents a winged celestial being frequently referenced throughout Scripture. According to the prophet Ezekiel's vision, cherubim appear as a group of four living crea...
Magic is described as "the pretended art of producing preternatural effects," constituting one of two principal divisions of occultism alongside divination. Effects produced may be...
Three figures pray and God delights in it: Moses, David, and the Messiah. This is the claim Aggadat Bereshit makes from (Proverbs 15:8) — "the prayer of the upright is His delight....
Abimelech ruled over Israel for three years (Judges 9:22). Aggadat Bereshit uses this strange opening — about a king in the book of Judges — to arrive at the first murder. The path...
"Jacob fled to the land of Aram" (Hosea 12:13). The prophet is not describing geography — he is making a theological point about the interior life. Isaiah completes it: "My people,...
"And your eyes shall see" (Malachi 1:5). The prophet promises that Israel will watch the fall of Edom — watch it with their own eyes, from their own territory, and say: "Great is t...
A voice cries in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). The Aggadat Bereshit connects this voice — the hera...
It wasn't just bad manners, folks. The story, as the rabbis tell it, is far more… complicated. Adam was made in God's image. And so was his son Seth, and Seth's son, Enosh. Accordi...
Because that's precisely the dilemma Jewish tradition grapples with when envisioning the Messianic Era – the time when all the righteous are resurrected. Where, oh where, will ever...
Yet, the rabbis of old saw a deep, underlying unity. A web of connections. Take, for example, the fascinating link they found between the laws of the nazir, the one who takes a vow...
It’s a question that resonates throughout Jewish tradition, and one that the Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, tackles head-on. The passag...
We often focus on the leaders, the prophets, the ones making history. But what about the everyday folks caught in the crossfire? Today, we're diving into a fascinating passage from...
But in Jewish tradition, there are moments where even MOSES, our greatest prophet, seems to do just that. to one of those fascinating instances from Bamidbar Rabbah 19. The verse w...
It all starts with the line: “Moav was very alarmed by the nation because they were numerous, and Moav was dreaded by the children of Israel” (Numbers 22:3). But what does it reall...
The story, as it unfolds in the Book of Numbers, centers on Balak, king of Moab, who is terrified by the approaching Israelites. He hires Bilam, a non-Israelite prophet known for t...
It's all about perception, stubbornness, and maybe even a little bit of divine humor. So, the scene is set: Bilam, a non-Jewish prophet hired to curse the Israelites, is on his way...
Today we're diving into a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 20 that explores exactly that: the surprising power held within seemingly minor mitzvot (commandments), or comman...
The Torah gives us some pretty strong clues, and it all boils down to how they chose to attack us. Think about the story of Balaam and Balak. Remember that? Balak, the King of Moab...
But Jewish tradition, in its beautiful, often paradoxical way, has some fascinating answers. to Bereshit Rabbah, one of the oldest and most important commentaries on the Book of Ge...
Rabbi Yoḥanan, a prominent Jewish sage, offers a fascinating, and perhaps surprising, perspective. He says that the sentence, the punishment, of the generation of the Flood lasted ...
(Ecclesiastes 9:14) tells a strange little story: "There was a small city, with few men in it, and a great king came against it and surrounded it." What does it mean? In Bereshit R...
The verse at the heart of this discussion is (Genesis 9:6): "One who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed, as He made man in the image of God." Simple enough on t...
