633 related texts · 4 related myths · Page 3 of 14
That feeling’s deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. Midrash Tehillim, our window into the book of Psalms, connects this idea of purity with the very act of approaching God. It says, ...
"And he brought them to his holy mountain," Midrash Tehillim tells us, "this is the Temple." "And he cast lots for them in the inheritance and settled them in their tents. The glor...
Midrash Tehillim turns to Rod and Serpent of Tabernacle. A fascinating little nugget from Midrash Tehillim, a homiletical commentary on the Book of Psalms. It deals with truth, fal...
It’s not random. There's a beautiful and intricate choreography to our relationship with the Divine. Consider the dedication of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. The Book of Numbers tel...
God rested. But what does that mean? The book of Genesis tells us, "And on the seventh day God finished his work" (Gen. 2:2). But according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating...
Prayer is often remembered as a one-way street, us reaching out to the Divine. But what if the Divine is also reaching out, also… praying? The Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of Midr...
In the book of Bamidbar – Numbers, in English – we find a fascinating passage that deals precisely with this: the idea of sacred space, separation, and the surprising presence of t...
It wasn't just a one-day event. According to Sifrei Bamidbar, the book of Numbers, the seven days leading up to the dedication were a whirlwind of activity. Every single morning fo...
Sifrei Bamidbar turns to The Sabbath Burnt-Offering Prepared on Friday Evening. The verse states, "the burnt-offering of the Sabbath on its Sabbath." Simple enough. But as always, ...
Jewish tradition does. It doesn't just say "go to war." It asks, "How do we go to war. justly?" The Sifrei Devarim, a legal commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, opens a fascinati...
The standard biblical text of (Exodus 26:1-37) reads like a construction manual. Ten curtains of fine linen, fifty gold clasps, boards of acacia wood, silver bases. The ancient Ara...
The final chapter of Exodus (Exodus 40:1-38) is, in the Hebrew Bible, the moment God's Presence fills the completed Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns this moment into a prophet...
When Moses finished building the Tabernacle, he stood outside and refused to go in. His reasoning, according to the Targum Jonathan, was striking: Mount Sinai had been holy for onl...
The Targum Jonathan delivers one of its harshest legal rulings in Leviticus 17: anyone who slaughters a sacrificial animal outside the Tabernacle is treated "as if he had shed inno...
Our rabbis taught: An incident once took place with a Jewish man who had one cow [which he used] for ploughing. [Then], his hand [fortune] was diminished and he sold her [the cow] ...
A Jew once owned a cow that refused to work on the Sabbath. The story, preserved in the Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 14) and the Maase Buch, became one of the most beloved animal tales...
One small Hebrew word, kalot, "completed", carries an entire wedding, an entire exorcism, and the steadying of the whole world. In Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:5, the sages pry open (Nu...
A man named Joseph, who kept the Shabbat with uncommon care, had a neighbor who was rich, fearful, and utterly convinced of astrology. The neighbor was told by a professional astro...
Turnus Rufus, the Roman governor of Judea in the early second century, once pulled Rabbi Akiva into a debate on the Shabbat. Rufus opened with the move he thought would win. "I hol...
Rabbi Achiya, the son of Abba, used to tell this story of a Sabbath he spent in the town of Ludik. He had been invited into the home of a wealthy man. The table was laid with a sum...
The Roman emperor Antoninus was a friend of Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah, known to tradition as Rabbi. The two men ate together often, and the emperor notice...
A man should study less on Friday, the kabbalists teach, and spend the saved hours preparing for the Sabbath. This is one of the stranger reversals in Jewish life. Normally Torah s...
Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta was famously poor. One Friday afternoon, as the Sabbath was closing in, his wife came to him with the familiar announcement: there was no food in the hous...
There was once a man named Joseph who was famous in his city for one thing above all others: he honored the Shabbat. Every Friday his table groaned under fish and wine, whatever th...
Rabbi Zakkai, according to a tradition preserved in Rabbi Nissim of Kairouan's tenth-century work Chibbur Yafeh meha-Yeshuah, was granted an unusually long life. His students, puzz...
Rabbi Meir was traveling and stopped for Shabbat at an inn. The innkeeper's name was Kidor. Meir did not like the name. It reminded him of a verse in (Deuteronomy 32:20), where God...
A group of children in a Jewish village were playing on Shabbat. As the sun rose higher over the day of rest, they wandered too close to the edge of an old well and fell in. The we...
The prophet Isaiah promised a strange future (Isaiah 66:23): It shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worsh...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:5) reads the Sabbath instructions for the manna as a halakhic footnote to the whole story: And on the sixth day they shall prepare what they se...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:23) gives us the first explicit teaching of Sabbath cookery in the Torah, and the Targumist relays it with a domestic precision that would be a...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:29) transforms a short Hebrew verse into the founding document of the Sabbath's geography: Behold, because I have given you the Sabbath, I gave...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders the Sabbath commandment with a widening circle. "But the seventh day is for rest and quietude before the Lord your God: you shall not perform any...
The construction of the Mishkan is described in Exodus 26 with a catalog of measurements and materials that reads, The first reading, like an architect's invoice. Ten curtains of f...
(Exodus 26:28) describes an engineering detail. A middle bar, passing through the boards of the Tabernacle from end to end, holding the walls together. Plain Hebrew gives the speci...
The Mishkan was about to be built. Artisans had received the Spirit of wisdom. Materials were being gathered. And then, in the middle of the construction commands, God paused and s...
The Sabbath command carries a severity that shocks modern readers. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves it in its original sharpness: "Ye shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy to ...
The Hebrew Torah commands Israel to keep the Sabbath. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds three words that change the flavor entirely: Israel shall keep the Sabbath "to perform the delight...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 39:33) does something the plain Hebrew text does not. It tells us where, exactly, the finished tabernacle was brought. Not to a random tent. Not t...
The altar of burnt offering was the first thing anyone saw on approaching the Tabernacle. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:29) places it exactly there, at the gate, before the ...
The greatest prophet in the Torah, the man who spoke with God "face to face" (Exodus 33:11), the builder of the sanctuary itself. And he could not walk inside. Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
Maybe, just maybe, you're missing the Shabbat (the Sabbath). That sacred pause in the week, that island of stillness in our often-frantic lives. But did you know the Sabbath itself...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to The Mysterious Census Number That Echoed the Tabernacle. This particular number, 603,550, might ring a bell. It echoes another census, the one taken during...
It wasn't a random free-for-all. The Book of Numbers gives us a fascinating glimpse into a highly structured encampment around the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. And Bamidbar Rabbah, a c...
It wasn't just a matter of tossing everything into a wagon. There was a precise order, a sacred choreography, and it all begs the question: Why this order? Bamidbar Rabbah, specifi...
Bamidbar Rabbah, a classic collection of Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) teachings on the Book of Numbers, gives us a fascinating peek into just that. It takes a passa...
Bamidbar Rabbah turns to Tabernacle — The Golden Calf. They connect this moment of completion and consecration to (Psalm 85:9): "I will hear what the Almighty Lord has to say, for ...
The ancient rabbis grappled with that feeling too, especially when things were going well for the Israelites. Take the story in Bamidbar Rabbah 12, which begins with a single, load...
It turns out, it’s a feeling that resonates even within the stories of our most revered figures. Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives i...
