486 related texts · 8 related myths · Page 9 of 11
The Zohar, that mystical cornerstone of Kabbalah, certainly thinks so. And in Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 42, we get a glimpse into just how intimate that code might be. The ...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a mystical companion to the Zohar, certainly thinks so. It's all about unlocking those secrets, revealing the deeper connections between seem...
Sages are gathered, delving into the mysteries of creation. One tanna, a teacher of Jewish law, rises and shares a profound insight, building upon the wisdom of those who came befo...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, certainly sees it that way. In Tikkunei Zohar 124, we find this very image: the Torah as a garden, specifically a...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, offers a breathtaking image. It begins with a single word: yasis. The text doesn't elaborate much on the word its...
"When you take a census of the Children of Israel, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for his soul" (Exodus 30:12). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this as God offering the J...
The debate over where the Israelites placed the Passover blood continues in the Mekhilta, and Rabbi Nathan and Rabbi Yitzchak stake out dramatically different positions, each revea...
"And they shall place it on the two side posts and on the lintel": I might think that if he placed (the blood on) one before the other, he has not fulfilled his obligation. It is, ...
The Torah instructs in (Exodus 12:22), "And you shall take a bunch of hyssop," referring to the bundle of hyssop used to apply the blood of the Paschal lamb to the doorposts in Egy...
The Mekhilta, the great halakhic midrash on the Book of Exodus compiled in the 2nd century CE, raises a deceptively simple question about the Passover blood ritual. The Torah comma...
"and the L–rd will skip over the blood": Now does this not follow a fortiori, viz. If of the blood (on the door) of the Pesach (Passover) of Egypt, the less "formidable," which obt...
The measure of flesh and blood. A man cannot speak two things at the same time. But the measure of the Holy One Blessed be He. He said (all) of the ten commandments as one, viz. (E...
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 asks a triumphant question: how do we know that all of Moses' many requests, his desperate pleas to enter the Promised Land, were ultimately granted by the Holy One, B...
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 asks a deceptively simple question: why were the Ten Commandments not placed at the very beginning of the Torah? If they are the foundation of the cov...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael pauses on a single phrase from the Ten Commandments to ask a question about dignity. When God declared "who took you out from the land of Egypt," what...
Idolatry and adultery are the same sin. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), makes this case by pointing to the stru...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael identifies another pairing across the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. "Honor your father and your mother" stood directly opposite "You shall not ...
The Torah prescribes a vivid ritual for a Hebrew servant who refuses to go free after six years of service: "Then his master shall bore his ear" with an awl against a doorpost (Exo...
Moses certainly did. In the book of Exodus (33:18-23), we find Moses pleading with God, "Oh, let me behold Your presence!" It's a raw, human moment. Can you imagine the courage, th...
If you had something that could smooth out those bumps, flatten those peaks, and make the journey a little easier. Well, according to Jewish tradition, the Israelites had just such...
It sounds like something out of a fantastical story, but according to tradition, there was a time when the Hebrew alphabet itself was called upon to do just that. God, seeing that ...
A Psalm of David. May the Lord in your strength rejoice, O king!" It then connects this verse to (Isaiah 11:10): "And it shall come to pass on that day, that the root of Jesse, tha...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, grapples with this very feeling. Specifically, Midrash Tehillim 31 dives into (Psalm 31:22), "Bles...
How does God really reward and punish us? Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, grapples with this very question. It dives into (Psalm 6...
Take Psalm 103, for example. It’s a song of praise, a declaration of divine forgiveness and goodness. But Midrash Tehillim, an ancient collection of interpretations on the Book of ...
The story begins with a simple question. Rabbi Jochanan, noticing something amiss, asks Eliezer if he knows the Shema' (the central Jewish prayer affirming God's oneness), the Teph...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating early medieval Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), dives right into this question. It presents a somewhat… unusual… perspective on how...
The scene: Jacob is on his deathbed. He summons his beloved son, Joseph. This isn't just a goodbye; it's a moment of profound importance. Jacob says, "O my son! Swear to me by the ...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer turns to The Burning Bush of Israelites. The narrative begins, surprisingly, not with the Israelites' impatience, but with MOSES himself. When God first appe...
The familiar story is this: from Exodus 32 – Moses is up on Mount Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments, and the Israelites, feeling abandoned, demand that Aaron make them a god. B...
Rabbi Shema'iah, in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 50), asks a pretty sharp question: Was Mordecai really the only Jew in the entire city of Shushan? I mean, ((Esther 9:1)5) clear...
It's absolutely fundamental. In fact, Rabbi Yehoshua of Sikhnin, quoting Rabbi Levi, makes a powerful statement: "Great is peace, for all blessings are sealed with peace." This isn...
Our tradition wrestles with this question constantly, and one striking example comes from the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commentary on the Bible. Specifically, Yalku...
The Torah provides a fascinating and compassionate solution: cities of refuge, places where an unintentional manslayer could flee and find sanctuary. But how did these cities work,...
The ancient rabbis certainly did, wrestling with the nuances of laws, especially those concerning cities of refuge. The passage begins by examining the biblical command to establis...
The Talmud and Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) are FULL of debates about how justice should be applied, especially when dealing with something as serious as accidental d...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a vast collection of rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, compiled sometime in the 13th century, hints at just such a thing. Specifically, the commentary on...
The Torah, in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), gives us a little geographical detail that hints at a much bigger story about journeys, delays, and maybe even missed opportunities...
It might surprise you to learn that some of our most cherished daily practices weren’t always so…daily. to a fascinating passage from Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal interpre...
That’s something Jewish tradition has grappled with for centuries, especially when it comes to understanding the Torah.It's all about the idea of repetition, or shinun, and what ex...
I get it. Take the famous words from Deuteronomy (Devarim) 6:7 about reciting the Shema: "…when you lie down and when you rise." Sounds simple. But what does it really mean? The Si...
The ancient rabbis certainly did! And their discussions, preserved in texts like the Sifrei Devarim, offer us a fascinating peek into how Jewish law and custom developed. Take the ...
The sages of the Sifrei Devarim, an early rabbinic commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, dig deep into this very question, and what they uncover is surprisingly…intense. The rabbi...
Not just any mountain, but one with not one, not two, but three names. Why? That's where our story begins. In the book of Devarim, Deuteronomy, we find the verse (32:49) telling Mo...
What is the engine that drives Torah study? Sifrei Devarim tackles the question head-on. It all revolves around the verse in Deuteronomy (6:5), the very heart of the Shema: "to lov...
Sifrei Devarim turns to The Ear-Piercing Ritual of the Slave Who Chose to Stay. The ritual was… striking. The master would take the slave to the doorpost of his house and pierce hi...
