486 related texts · 8 related myths · Page 7 of 11
The story goes that when Moses realized that Heaven and Earth, the very cosmos, wouldn’t answer his prayers, he turned to humanity. He sought solace, intercession, from those he ha...
The story of Eli and his sons in the Bible is a stark reminder. It's more than just a tale; it's a cautionary legend about leadership, faith, and consequences, retold and amplified...
Legends of the Jews turns to The Forgotten Custom Observed in the Month of Shavuot. Apparently, these communities would gather in their synagogues, reciting the Shema (the central ...
The mountain was on fire, the sky had turned black, and every person in the camp was convinced they were about to die. That was the scene at Mount Sinai when God spoke the Ten Comm...
A time when holiness wasn't just a nice idea, but the dominant force. The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text whose name roughly translates as "Thresholds of Wisdom," paint...
Jewish mysticism often speaks of such crucial, minute details, and their immense consequences. The passage focuses on the Hebrew letters in two powerful words: ShaDaY and EḤaD. Sha...
What is more, with (the casket of) Jacob there went up the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his household, while with Joseph there went up the ark and the Shechinah and the Co...
(Exodus 15:26) "And He said: If pay heed, you shall pay heed": From here it was derived: If a man paid heed to one mitzvah, he is caused to pay heed to many mitzvoth (commandments)...
The phrase "and I brought you to Me" refers to the moment God gathered Israel before Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. But Rabbi Akiva added a detail to this scene that transforms ...
Concerning this it is stated in the Tradition (Song of Songs 2:14) "My Dove in the clefts of the rock … Show me Your face; let me hear Your voice. For Your voice is sweet and Your ...
"Moses spoke and God answered him with a voice" (Exodus 19:19). Rabbi Eliezer asks: what does this verse actually tell us? The answer reveals something remarkable about how the Ten...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael tackles a puzzling question about the Ten Commandments. If all ten were spoken individually, why does the Torah present them as a unified declaration ...
The sages offered an alternative view of how the Ten Commandments were arranged on the two tablets. While Rabbi Chanina ben Gamliel taught that five commandments appeared on each t...
Rabbi Yishmael noticed something crucial in the opening words of the Torah's civil law code (Exodus 21:1): "And these are the judgments." The key word is "and", in Hebrew, the conj...
When a Hebrew slave chooses to remain in servitude rather than go free at the end of his six-year term, the Torah prescribes a specific ritual: his master takes an awl and bores th...
Rabbi Nathan interpreted the verse "and perverts the words of the righteous" (Exodus 23:8) as referring to something far more severe than ordinary judicial corruption. The one who ...
Imagine, if you will, a cosmic soup of Hebrew letters, swirling and chaotic. Before creation, that's what The letters of the alphabet, unmoored, without sequence. Then, God stepped...
It's an age-old question: how can we possibly dedicate ourselves fully to learning when life keeps pulling us in a million different directions? Well, Midrash Tehillim offers some ...
Our exploration begins with a verse from the Song of Songs (7:3): "Your navel is like a round goblet... Your belly is a heap of wheat." The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentar...
David, contemplating his own mortality and the possibility of divine judgment, seems to be saying, "If my judgment comes on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I can't bear it!" But,...
Some prayers aren't polite. Midrash Tehillim 42 preserves one that reads more like a plea, a challenge, almost a demand, directed straight at God. The speaker in this Midrash (rabb...
The verse Now, what does that even mean? Rabbi Yitzhak offers a compelling idea: He connects this verse to the mitzvah (commandment) of wearing tefillin (leather phylacteries worn ...
Why Shabbat (the Sabbath)? What makes it so special? Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms, digs deep into this very question, particularly in ...
Like you're almost superhuman, and then…bam! Reality hits. That feeling, that tension between the ideal and the real, is at the heart of a fascinating passage from Pirkei DeRabbi E...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, offers a breathtaking glimpse into just that moment. Rabbi Yochanan tells us that the world was create...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a massive compilation of rabbinic commentary on the entire Hebrew Bible, offers a fascinating glimpse. In its section on Torah portion 405, it says something qu...
Yalkut Shimoni on Torah turns to Moses Studies Torah of Jordan. Well, it all stems from an earlier verse: "Then Moses set apart three cities." We know Moses established these citie...
It’s a theme that echoes even in the most ancient texts, like the story of Yithro, Moses’ father-in-law. In the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) 10:30, we find a fascinating exchange. Mo...
The Torah dedicates significant space to the idea of cities of refuge, places where someone who has accidentally killed another person can flee and find protection. But when exactl...
In the Torah, we find the concept of cities of refuge, places where someone who accidentally committed manslaughter could flee and find sanctuary. But the details, as always, are f...
In the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), specifically chapter 3, verse 24, we find Moses pleading with God. He says, "Your greatness (gadlecha).." But what exactly does that gadlecha ...
The verse states, "as He swore to your forefathers". And the Sifrei Devarim explains that everything that follows is "all in the merit of the forefathers." The blessings, the promi...
The Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 392 makes a breathtaking claim about the two stone tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai: they were not made from any earthly material. "The tablet...
The full scope of Moses's argument against the angels is recorded in Shabbat 89a, and it is a masterclass in turning your opponent's own premises against them. Moses went through t...
Moses did not come down from Sinai with only stone. In Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 1:22, Resh Lakish reads one verse as an entire library. God says, "I will give you the tablets of stone,...
The Midrash of the Ten Commandments, a medieval midrashic anthology organized around the Decalogue that was popular in Jewish communities from Spain to Yemen in the eleventh and tw...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves Moses's answer to Jethro's probing question: "When they have a matter for judgment, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his fellow, ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records one of the most consequential sentences ever spoken by a people: "All the people responded together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we w...
The plain Hebrew of (Exodus 24:12) reads simply that God promised Moses the tablets of stone, the Torah, and the commandment. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot leave it that spare....
After the intercession, the mercy, and the glimpse of the tefillin knot, the Lord gave Moses a practical command that would take him back up Sinai a second time. Targum Pseudo-Jona...
Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives deep into the concept of actions that leave irreparable damage. what it means to create a "distort...
The sages of the Talmud grappled with this very emotion, particularly in the context of marriage and fidelity. And surprisingly, the Torah has a lot to say about it. to an intrigui...
What does it all mean? , drawing on the tradition of Jewish tradition to unravel this mystery. The Torah tells us, "The priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and erase it in...
It might sound like a stretch, but our sages saw profound links between generations, commandments, and even the offerings brought by the princes of Israel. The Book of Numbers, Bam...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to The Sky-Blue Thread and the Weight of Mitzvot. As it says in (Psalms 97:11), “Light is sown for the righteous…” Bamidbar Rabbah understands this to mean th...
A powerful image. "The power of His deeds He told to His people" (Psalms 111:6). According to Bamidbar Rabbah, God could have simply created a new land for the Israelites. But inst...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis, and see what they had to say about...
The book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, opens with the simple phrase, "These are the words…" And immediately, the ancient interpreters of our tradition, the rabbis of the Midrash (rabbin...
