486 related texts · 8 related myths · Page 3 of 11
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to Moses Pleads for a Worthy Successor to Lead Israel. The key, some sages suggest, lies in the Hebrew word yifkod, "appoint." According to Bamidbar Rabbah, t...
A fascinating discussion from Devarim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Deuteronomy, focusing on the Shema, Judaism's central declaration of belief: "...
Shemot Rabbah turns to The Ten Commandments of David. Think of it like this: Imagine two people going to court. One's a lawyer, the other's just winging it. What makes the layman m...
It's justice. That’s why, as Shemot Rabbah tells us, God gave us laws after the Ten Commandments. If justice is perverted, everything crumbles. God, in his ultimate justice, brings...
Take this one: "His hands are rods of gold set with beryl; his belly is a slab of ivory covered with sapphires." (Song of Songs 5:14). Beautiful imagery, but what does it mean? Wel...
Rabbi Ḥiyya taught that this specific portion, Kedoshim, was delivered in a grand assembly – "Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel..." (Leviticus 19:2). Why? ...
It’s a conduit, a channel. The Zohar, that cornerstone of Kabbalistic thought, already touched on this when discussing the Hebrew alphabet. And what it reveals is pretty . It's not...
"so that the Torah of the L–rd be in your mouth": What is the intent of this? From "And it shall be to you as a sign," I would assume that women, too, are included (in the mitzvah ...
Variantly: What is the intent of "from day to day"? From "and it shall be to you as a sign," I might think, even on Sabbaths and festivals. And this would follow, viz. Since both m...
The ministering angels were astounded (at Israel's survival), saying: "Idolators walking on the dry land in the midst of the sea!" And whence is it derived that the sea, too, was f...
Rabbi Simlai made one of the most ambitious claims in the entire Talmud. He said: 613 commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, 365 prohibitions corresponding to the days of the s...
The answer, as we find in Jewish tradition, is both breathtakingly beautiful and terrifyingly destructive. The tradition tells us that the face of the God of Israel is… well, it’s ...
How Confession Turns Harsh Judgment Into Mercy is the question behind this passage from Likutey Moharan (Rabbi Nachman). Through the Torah of lovingkindness, which the Talmud defin...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that anyone who wants to taste the Or HaGanuz (אור הגנוז), the Hidden Light that God stored away from the first day of creation, must elevate the qu...
One of my favorite images is this: God carries everything beneath His arms. Not just a gentle embrace, but a sustaining act of holding. According to some mystical traditions, God's...
Moses had the worst errand of his life. God told him to bring his brother up the mountain to die. He could not bring himself to say the words. Aaron said them for him. "My brother,...
Who wrote the Hebrew Bible? The Talmud in Bava Batra 14b provides a complete accounting, attributing every book to a specific author. Moses wrote his own book, the Torah. And also ...
The rabbis once overruled God. And God laughed. According to Bava Metzia 59b, the incident began with an argument about an oven. Rabbi Eliezer declared a certain oven ritually pure...
Berurya, one of the sharpest minds in all of Talmudic literature, once caught a student studying Torah in a whisper. She kicked him and said: Scripture teaches that Torah must be "...
The Talmud in Tractate Eruvin asks a strange question: why is the Torah compared to a deer? The answer: a deer's womb is narrow. Every time the deer mates, it is as cherished as th...
What does God do all day? The Talmud in Tractate Avodah Zarah takes this question seriously. The rabbis laid out a detailed twelve-hour schedule. During the first three hours, God ...
The Hebrew Bible calls Moses "the man of God" (Deuteronomy 33:1). Targum Onkelos adds one word: "the prophet of God." Moses is not merely a man who belongs to God. He is a prophet,...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses died "by the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 34:5). Ancient tradition interprets this as death by a divine kiss, the gentlest possible departure from life. T...
The Hebrew Bible makes one of its most radical claims in (Deuteronomy 30:12-14): "It is not in heaven. nor is it overseas. for the matter is extremely close to you, in your mouth a...
When they went out of Egypt, Moses said ‘while you, who held fast to God your God, are all alive today’ (Deuteronomy 4:4); and when they went out of Jerusalem, Jeremiah said ‘the t...
Before the universe existed, not even parchment existed, no animals had yet been created to provide skins for scrolls. So the Torah was written on the arm of God Himself, in black ...
Abraham was ninety-nine years old when God renewed the covenant (Genesis 17:1). The sons of Korah composed a psalm about this moment, "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
"I will not break my covenant, nor change that which has come out of my lips" (Psalm 89:35). The binding of Isaac begins with this verse in Aggadat Bereshit, not with the command i...
"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord" (Psalm 112:1). The rabbis asked: what ultimately happens to him? And they landed on Ecclesiastes: "In the end, everything will be heard, fea...
Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau (Genesis 32:4). The Hebrew word is malachim, messengers, angels. The midrash says this literally: Jacob sent actual angels. He had t...
Joseph was brought down to Egypt (Genesis 39:1). Lamentations gives the frame: "Good is the man who sits alone and is silent, for he will bear the yoke upon himself. He will put hi...
After two full years in prison, Pharaoh dreamed (Genesis 41:1). The midrash reads this through Psalm 73: "As an endless dream, the Lord despised their form." God does not reveal Hi...
"Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?" (Malachi 2:10). Judah approaches Joseph, who is not yet revealed as his brother. And identifies his family: "We, your twelv...
There is nothing more beloved than the Mincha prayer. The afternoon offering, the one between the morning and the evening, is the prayer that comes at the moment when the day is st...
When the chieftains of Israel rolled up to the Tabernacle with six covered wagons, the Torah uses a strange word for those wagons, tzav. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:8 turns the word un...
When Rome forbade Israel to study Torah on pain of death, Rabbi Akiva went right on teaching it in the open, gathering crowds around him. His friend Pappus ben Yehudah stumbled acr...
An apostate once led the king into a synagogue at precisely the hour when the Torah reader was chanting the verse from Deuteronomy: "How can one pursue a thousand, and two put ten ...
The Roman Empire had outlawed Torah study. Jews who gathered to learn risked execution. Pappos ben Yehudah, a cautious man, saw Rabbi Akiva publicly teaching Torah in open defiance...
Rabbi Joshua came to the academy one afternoon and asked the students what Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah had taught that morning. The young man had been appointed head of the Sanhedrin...
A famous debate arose in the academy between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua over the ritual status of a particular oven, called the oven of Akhnai. The technical question has bec...
The sages were debating whether a certain oven, built in sections and joined with sand, could become ritually unclean. Rabbi Eliezer ruled it pure. The majority ruled it impure. He...
This is one of the cruelest and most luminous stories in the Talmud, preserved both in tractate Avodah Zarah and in Moses Gaster's 1924 collection as exemplum No. 67. Rabbi Chanina...
The rabbis counted the ways a human being can leave this world. They arrived at nine hundred and three, derived from the verse, “Unto God the Lord belong the issues of death&...
The fifth son of Leah is Issachar, and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 30:18) gives his name a remarkable explanation. Leah says, The Lord hath given me my reward, for that ...
Some tribes fought. Some farmed. Zebulun sailed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the brief Hebrew line in (Genesis 49:13) and gives it a maritime vista. "Zebulon shall dwell upon the ...
The first verse of the Torah contains two words that English translations almost always skip. The Hebrew et (את) appears twice in (Genesis 1:1), "in the beginning God created et th...
At Shushan's gate, even the Torah appeared to mourn. Targum Sheni on (Esther 4:1) says the holy ark was brought out, the book of the Law was taken from it, and sackcloth and ashes ...
