3,636 related texts · Page 66 of 76
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 15:14) "Peoples heard—they quaked": When the peoples heard that Pharaoh and his hosts were lost in the sea, that the rule of Egypt had ended, and that their idolatry had be...
When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the news sent shockwaves through the ancient world. The Mekhilta examines the verse "Then the chiefs of Edom were confounded" (Exodus 15:15...
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...
(Exodus 15:18) "You will bring them and You will plant them": The fathers prophesied without knowing what (they were prophesying). It is not written "You will bring us and You will...
The Mekhilta highlights a detail about Miriam's song that establishes a fundamental principle about women's participation in Israelite worship. The verse says "And Miriam answered ...
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. ...
(Exodus 15:22) "And they went out to the desert of Shur": This is the desert of Kazav. They said about the desert of Kazav that it was nine hundred parasangs by nine hundred parasa...
The Mekhilta takes a detour from the Exodus narrative to establish a principle about prayer: the prayers of the righteous are short. Not flowery. Not elaborate. Short. The proof co...
The Mekhilta immediately balances its teaching about short prayers with a counter-example. On another occasion, a disciple led the prayer service before Rabbi Elazar and was extrem...
Rabbi Yossi and Rabbi Shimon used a vivid and startling metaphor to describe how the Israelites ate in the wilderness. They said Israel "stuffed themselves like horses" when the ma...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offered a remarkable tradition about Joshua the son of Nun and his unique relationship with the manna. (Psalms 78:25) says "He sent them sustenance to...
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...
(Exodus 16:35) "And the children of Israel ate the manna for forty years": R. Yehoshua says: for forty days they ate the manna after the death of Moses. How so? Moses died on the s...
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 ...
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...
When Amalek attacked the Israelites at Rephidim—the first nation to wage war against the newly freed slaves—Moses turned to his student Joshua with a command (Exodus 17:9): "Choose...
Before the battle against Amalek, Moses made a declaration: "Tomorrow I shall stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand" (Exodus 17:9). But what did he mean by "tom...
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...
at which he said to the Holy One Blessed be He: Can it be that Your ways are like those of flesh and blood? The apitoropos makes a decree and the kalidikos abrogates it; the kalidi...
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...
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...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a fascinating tradition about the name of Jethro, Moses's father-in-law. His name was not always Jethro. In the beginning, the Torah calls h...
What was Yithro's role in Midian before he joined Moses and the people of Israel? The verse calls him "the Cohein of Midian" (Exodus 18:1), and two rabbis disagreed about what "Coh...
R. Elazar Homadai says: in a land of foreign (gods, i.e., idolatry). Moses said: Since the whole world serves idolatry, I will serve Him who spoke and brought the (whole) world int...
"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...
Jethro watched his son-in-law Moses judging the entire nation of Israel alone, from morning until evening, and he gave him a piece of advice wrapped in a parable. "Look at that bea...
Yithro's plan for restructuring Israel's judicial system was built on precise mathematics. He told Moses to appoint "officers of thousands, officers of hundreds, officers of fiftie...
The verse states (Exodus 18:22): "Every great thing shall they bring to you." But what does "great" mean in this context? The Mekhilta identifies two possible readings and uses a l...
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, watched Moses judging the people alone from morning until evening and proposed a radical restructuring of the judicial system. He recommended ap...
The Torah records that the Israelites "journeyed from Refidim and came to the desert of Sinai" (Exodus 19:2). But the Mekhilta notices a problem. The previous verse already stated ...
The Israelites arrived at the desert of Sinai carrying baggage far heavier than anything on their backs. They carried the weight of recent rebellion. The Mekhilta draws a striking ...
The Torah describes God bearing Israel "on eagles' wings" (Exodus 19:4), and the Mekhilta asks a pointed question: why an eagle? What makes the eagle different from every other bir...
Rabbi Yehudah explains a remarkable exchange between God and Moses at Sinai. God told Moses: I will speak something to you, and you will return an answer to Me, and then I will ack...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a different reading of the events at Sinai, one that elevates Moses's stature even further. He argues that we would only need to "acknowledge th...
When God prepared to give the Torah at Sinai, Moses served as the intermediary, carrying messages between heaven and the people camped at the foot of the mountain. But according to...
God told Moses to have the people ready "for the third day" (Exodus 19:11), and the Mekhilta identifies this as the sixth day of the month of Sivan — the day on which the Torah was...
The Torah states that God descended onto Mount Sinai "before the eyes of all the people" (Exodus 19:11), and the Mekhilta draws a startling conclusion from those words: if even a s...
Moses told the people, "Be ready in three days" (Exodus 19:15), instructing them to separate from their wives in preparation for receiving the Torah. But the Mekhilta notices a pro...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a different solution to the question of how Moses derived the requirement for marital separation before receiving the Torah. Rather than relying...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws a legal ruling from God's command to the Israelites before the revelation at Sinai: "Do not draw near to a woman" (Exodus 19:15). Moses delivere...
