1,715 related texts · Page 23 of 36
It’s not inside some stuffy palace, oh no. This is an outdoor affair, staged in the royal gardens, but transformed into something truly otherworldly. The first thing you notice is ...
One hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers died in a single night. That is how God answered Sennacherib, king of Assyria, when he broke his word to Hezekiah and sent an army to ...
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream so terrifying that when he woke up, he could not remember what he had seen—only the dread it left behind. He summoned every magician, astrologer, and wis...
The moment Herod was dead, the nation exploded. Three separate revolts broke out across the country before his sons could even settle who inherited what. According to Josephus in A...
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...
That’s what happened to Isaac. We all know the story: Abraham, tested to his limits, is commanded to sacrifice his beloved son. It’s a gut-wrenching tale of faith, obedience, and u...
The ancient Israelites felt that way too. Imagine them, fresh from the Exodus, facing a mountain of mitzvot (commandments), commandments. Build a sanctuary! Study the Torah! Live a...
You're not alone. Imagine God Himself, facing a similar dilemma. The heavens overflowing with bounty, with beauty beyond imagining, and yet… something is still missing for His chil...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later expansion of the Zohar, is a cornerstone of Kabbalistic thought, offering intricate interpretations of scripture and the mysteries of...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, that sprawling and often mind-bending companion to the Zohar, tackles this head-on. It declares that no dor, no generation, can be less than ...
It might sound a little cryptic at first, but bear with me. We’re going to unpack it together. The passage centers on the Hebrew letter Vav (ו), which the Tikkun (spiritual repair)...
The Tanya's thirty-fourth chapter brings everything together with a single image: the Patriarchs were God's chariot, and you can be too. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never, for a sing...
There is a love of God that surpasses all the forms of love the Tanya has described so far. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi compares it to gold surpassing silver. It burns like fiery...
The Israelites spent twelve months in Egypt after Moses first appeared before Pharaoh. Twelve months of escalating plagues, mounting chaos, and growing anticipation of departure. D...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, examines a verse that seems to state the obvious: "And the children of Israel did as Moses had bid them" (Exodus 12:35). The rabbis a...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, preserves a teaching from Rabbi Yossi HaGlili that explains why the Egyptians willingly handed over their treasures to the departing ...
"and they emptied out Egypt": We are hereby apprised that their idols melted and returned to their former state, (so that they were now permitted to take them.) And whence is it de...
When the Israelites finally left Egypt, they did not leave empty-handed. The Torah describes them departing with "flocks and herds, a great crush of cattle" — a staggering processi...
The Torah states "and you shall circumcise him; then he shall eat of it," establishing circumcision as a prerequisite for eating the Passover sacrifice. The Mekhilta uses this vers...
R. Eliezer says: What is the intent of "toshav and sachir"? (i.e., Is it not already written [(Exodus 12:43)] "No stranger may eat of it"?) To reason from Pesach (Passover) to teru...
The Torah commands: "And the priest shall burn wood upon it every morning" (Leviticus 6:5), referring to the daily kindling of fire on the altar. The Mekhilta immediately asks: why...
The Torah commands: "the one lamb shall you offer in the morning, and the other lamb shall you offer in the afternoon" (Numbers 28:4). This is the tamid, the daily perpetual offeri...
The Torah mentions redeeming "the first-born of the unclean beast" in (Numbers 18:15), which could suggest that every unclean animal's firstborn must be redeemed. Camels, horses, d...
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. ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai offered his own version of the parable about Egypt's catastrophic miscalculation, and his telling amplified the scale of the blunder dramatically. A man inh...
(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...
Rabbi Yehudah interprets the verse "And He removed their chariot wheels" (Exodus 14:25) as describing a scene far more spectacular than a simple mechanical failure. According to hi...
(Exodus 14:30) "And Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore of the sea": For four reasons: That they not say: Just as we came up on this side, so they came up on another side (and will ...
The Mekhilta continues its meditation on the Song of the Sea by enumerating the reasons God is worthy of song. "I shall sing to the Lord," the Israelites declared — and one reason ...
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 takes a single Hebrew word from the Song of the Sea — "ve'anvehu" — and shows how three different rabbis derive three entirely different meanings from it, each reveali...
When the (other) kingdoms are symbolized, they are symbolized as cedars, viz. (Ezekiel 31:3) "Behold, Ashur, a cedar in the Levanon," and (Amos 2:9) "And I destroyed the Emori from...
"The foe said, etc.": How did Israel know what Pharaoh thought of them in Egypt? The Holy Spirit reposed upon them and they knew it. Pharaoh said: It really does not befit us to pu...
The Egyptian army was not unified in its cruelty. According to the Mekhilta, the Egyptians at the Red Sea divided into three factions, each with a different plan for what to do wit...
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...
When God told Moses to take the staff that had struck the Nile, the Mekhilta explains the reason: it was because of Israel's "murmurings." The people had been complaining, and now ...
The incense was terrifying. Israel had watched it kill Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, when they brought unauthorized fire before God (Leviticus 10:1). Two young priests, dead ...
Rabbi Chaninah once brought a question to Rabbi Elazar in the Great College: how should we understand the word "Refidim" in the verse "and warred with Israel in Refidim"? Should it...
After every other plea had been rejected, Moses turned to his nephew Elazar — the son of his brother Aaron — and threw himself at his feet. "Elazar, my brother's son," Moses said, ...
Variantly: From here ("a kingdom of Cohanim") it is derived that all of Israel were fit to eat of the offerings—until they made the golden calf. Once they made the golden calf, it ...
R. Shimon b. Elazar said: If the sons of Noach could not abide by the seven mitzvot (commandments)h commanded them, how much more so (could they not abide) by all the mitzvoth of t...
(Ibid. 4) "You shall not make for yourself an idol (lit., "a carving")": I might think that he may not make one that projects but he may make one that is flat. It is, therefore, wr...
When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, the Torah records that "Moses entered into the mist, where God was" (Exodus 20:21). The Mekhilta reveals that this approach to...
"On the eighth day shall you give it to Me" — the Torah specifies that a first-born animal becomes eligible for the altar on the eighth day after birth. But the Mekhilta asks: is i...
Remember the scene: Moses, up on Mount Sinai, receiving the very word of God, etched onto stone tablets. And then… disaster. The Israelites, impatient and faithless, melt down thei...
We often picture the shame, the hardship... but what about the stuff? Did he get to take anything with him? Well, according to one fascinating folktale recounted in Howard Schwartz...
The passage from (Proverbs 1:22-33) kicks things off: "'How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?'... 'and fools hate knowledge.'" The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive com...
The great King David felt that way too. In Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms, we find a beautiful exploration of Psalm 119. It's all about ...
