432 related texts · Page 3 of 9
And 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, w...
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 so...
It’s a question that’s haunted mystics and theologians for millennia. And the answer, as we find in Jewish tradition, is both breathtakingly beautiful and terrifyingly destructive....
To draw peace into the world, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught, you must elevate God's glory to its source. And that source is fear. "To fear the glorious name" (Deuteronomy 28:58)....
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 th...
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. Ta...
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 mou...
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 on...
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 ...
"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 — fe...
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 ...
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 twe...
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 ...
“Gone from the daughter of Zion is all her splendor. Her princes are like deer that have not found pasture; they went powerless before the pursuer” (Lamentations 1:6)“Gone from the...
“The yoke of my transgressions is preserved in His hand, becoming entangled, coming upon my neck, sapping my strength. The Lord delivered me into the hands of those against whom I ...
“See, Lord, for I am in distress, my innards burn, my heart overturned within me, for I have been defiant. Outside the sword bereaves; in the house, it is like death” (Lamentations...
“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” (Lamentations 3:37).“Who is it who said and it occurred, if the Lord did not command it?” – who did command? H...
“Your iniquity is completed, daughter of Zion; He will not continue to exile you. He will reckon your iniquity, daughter of Edom, He will expose your sins” (Lamentations 4:22).“You...
Rabbi Levi in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: It is written: “The hair of His head like pure wool” (Daniel 7:9); that He has no debt to any creature. Rabbi Yudan in the n...
Rabbi Azarya began: “Do not see wine in its redness, for one who sets his eye on the cup will walk the straight path” (Proverbs 23:31). Rabbi Azarya said: “Do not see wine in its r...
It is written: “And set it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14), this is one of four righteous people to whom a portent was given; two sensed it and two did not sense it. A porten...
“Haman said to King Aḥashverosh: There is one people that is scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from every peo...
Jewish tradition is full of these moments, and one particularly vivid story revolves around Joab, a general in King David's army, and a seemingly impossible siege. Imagine the scen...
According to Sifrei Devarim, before Jacob's passing, he gathered his sons. But it wasn’t just a sentimental family reunion. First, he rebuked them, each individually, and then he a...
We all know about the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, and even receiving the Ten Commandments. But what about the nitty-gritty details of setting up their new life, their new r...
The man who spoke to God face-to-face, led the Israelites out of slavery, and received the Ten Commandments. Surely, he was perfect. Not quite. The story goes that when God first c...
But Moses, Moshe Rabbenu, our teacher, wasn't about to give up on them. For forty days and forty nights—that's right, another forty-day stretch in the Bible—from the 18th of Tammuz...
According to ancient Jewish tradition, the people of Israel are unlike any other nation. Why? Because their entire lives are framed by a devotion to Torah (Jewish law and teachings...
Jewish tradition certainly knows the feeling. Let's talk about MOSES, at the very end of his life. Here’s MOSES, the guy who spoke to God face to face, led the Israelites out of Eg...
What about the truly sacred objects? Well, let's talk about the Ark of the Covenant, that legendary chest that held the tablets of the Ten Commandments. We know it vanished from hi...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a profound commentary on the Zohar, one of the central texts of Kabbalah, offers a glimpse into just that. In particular, Tikkunei Zohar 35 u...
Take tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer), those leather boxes containing sacred scrolls that observant Jews bind to their arm and forehead during morning prayer. Eve...
The Torah commands placing tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand." But where exactly on the hand? The Hebrew word yad can mean the entire arm from shou...
The Torah says to place tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand" — but which hand? The Mekhilta ruled that "hand," when used without further qualificatio...
Rabbi Yehudah offered a distinctive argument for the placement of the head tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer), drawing an unexpected connection between the laws of ...
