936 related texts · Page 12 of 20
You remember Jethro. Moses' father-in-law? The Midianite priest who recognized the greatness of God even before the Israelites fully grasped it? Well, according to the legends, his...
Sounds simple enough. But picture it: trekking from tent to tent, peering into every dwelling, trying to keep an accurate tally. A logistical nightmare! As Ginzberg recounts in Leg...
That’s the feeling I get when I read about the prophets Eldad and Medad. Their story, as retold in Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, is a fascinating little corner of Jewish propheti...
So, picture this: The Israelites are on the cusp of finally entering the land promised to their ancestors. Moses, following divine instruction, needs to get a lay of the land, so h...
The story goes that when the spies returned from scouting the land of Canaan – what we know today as Palestine/Israel – they cooked up a scheme to discourage the Israelites from ev...
It’s a universal feeling, that sense of being overwhelmed. But what if that feeling warped your perception of reality itself? That's precisely what happened in the story of the spi...
That's the story we're about to explore. After all those years wandering in the desert, the Israelites, led by Moses, were finally approaching the land promised to them by God. The...
Jewish tradition certainly understands that feeling. Let's talk about the deaths of three towering figures in the Torah: Miriam, Aaron, and Moses. You might think that because they...
The ancient Israelites did something similar with manna, that miraculous food from heaven. As the story goes, they sang a song not to the manna, but to the well that accompanied th...
Jewish tradition is full of stories exploring the pitfalls of overconfidence, particularly when it comes to knowledge of Torah. And one such story involves King David, a figure kno...
He's approaching the end of his life, and God is telling him it's time to name a successor. But it’s not as simple as just picking someone from his own family. As we read in Legend...
The story goes that Moses, knowing his time was drawing near, faced a weighty decision. God commanded him to wage war against the Midianites. But Moses, ever the insightful leader,...
after leading the Israelites through the desert for forty long years, Moses was denied entry into the land flowing with milk and honey. Harsh. And here’s the really interesting par...
The story of Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land is full of such moments, a rollercoaster of triumph and tragedy, and it all starts with Jericho. Imagine this: Joshua, leading t...
Their task? It was not slight. In fact, according to Legends of the Jews, it was comparable to Joshua's entire conquest of Canaan! Now, you might remember Joshua. He took on the la...
But the tradition often reminds us that even the best lineages can have some…interesting…twists and turns. Let's talk about Moses, yes THAT Moses, and a rather peculiar story about...
The story revolves around a famine in Israel, a famine attributed to King Saul's transgression against the Gibeonites. long ago, Joshua had made a pact with the Gibeonites, promisi...
That’s the kind of pressure Elijah was under. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, Elijah needed to rebuild an altar, dig a trench, and get everything ready in...
The tales of Elijah the Prophet often give us glimpses into that "more," blurring the lines between this world and the next. He’s not just a prophet, but almost a celestial caretak...
He was one of the most righteous kings of Judah, a real standout. He lived way back when—around the 8th century BCE—and he's remembered for some seriously impressive things. The Ta...
It’s a question that swirls around the story of Amon, one of the kings of Judah. He was, to put it mildly, not a nice guy. His deeds were so evil, so contrary to everything the Tor...
The Book of Esther tells us the broad strokes, but Jewish tradition fills in the emotional depth, the internal struggles, and the sheer courage it took to face such a daunting task...
The historian Josephus, writing in his work Against Apion, gives us a glimpse into the Jewish perspective on this very question. He contrasts the Jewish reverence for scripture wit...
Moses did not die in any normal sense. According to Josephus, writing in the first century CE, the greatest prophet who ever lived simply vanished—swallowed by a cloud on a mountai...
And tackling it requires us to ask some fundamental questions of our own. But before you run screaming into the night, let’s clarify: We’re not talking about diving into the unknow...
That’s a feeling that echoes through the ages, and it’s captured with raw emotion in the ancient text, Mitpachat Sefarim. Imagine the scene: The Knesset Yisrael, the assembly of Is...
It sounds wild, I know. But today, let’s dive into a tradition that encourages us to do just that. A tradition rooted in tikkun (spiritual repair), or repair, and the power of mind...
Jewish mysticism offers a fascinating perspective, suggesting that our souls embark on a journey of both descent and ultimate ascent. Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, a profound work of ...
Think of it this way: everything in existence is connected to God, to the Divine Source. But the way that connection manifests differs dramatically. Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot (Unde...
Jewish tradition grapples with this very feeling, this dance between revelation and concealment, and how it shapes our lives. : the world is full of mysteries. And yet, there’s als...
It’s more than just parchment and ink. It’s a conduit, a channel. The Zohar, that cornerstone of Kabbalistic thought, already touched on this when discussing the Hebrew alphabet. A...
And not only that, but we're actually encouraged – obligated, even – to try and decipher it. The text we're looking at today comes from Kalach Pitchei Chochmah, a deeply complex Ka...
It’s a question that's plagued humanity for millennia. And while I can't give you an easy answer, Jewish mystical tradition offers a fascinating, if complex, perspective. The Kalac...
That, in essence, is the secret we're about to explore. The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text, delves into the mystical mechanics of divine influence. It describes how, r...
That feeling is at the heart of the Idra Zuta, a mystical text within the Zohar, the foundational work of Jewish mysticism. Today, we're dipping our toes into its depths. The Idra ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a profound exploration of the Zohar, one of the central texts of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), offers just such a vision. It paints a picture ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a major text of Kabbalah, gives us a clue, a hint whispered from the heart of Jewish mysticism. It all starts with the very first word of the...
Jewish mysticism certainly thinks so. Today, we're diving into a passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 48, a section of the Tikkunei Zohar, a companion volume to the Zohar...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a profound and mystical commentary on the Zohar, offers a powerful image for just that feeling, and for how to combat it. It speaks of cleavi...
And in Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 59, we stumble upon some truly beautiful imagery. Imagine a towering tree, strong and unyielding. This, we're told, is the Middle Pillar, a...
Jewish mysticism wrestles with this very idea – the nature of perception, of revelation, and how we encounter the Divine. to a fascinating passage from Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a cornerstone of Kabbalistic literature, certainly suggests so. It paints a picture of the universe where even the Torah itself is part of th...
And sometimes, just sometimes, the mystical texts offer a glimpse, a fleeting impression of that cosmic perspective. The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later, deeply esoteric...
According to the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central work of Kabbalah, that person is actually doing something incredibly damaging. The text says that preventing the under...
Ever look at a Hebrew letter and think, "There's more to this than meets the eye?" You’re absolutely right. We often think of the Hebrew alphabet as simply a way to write words. Bu...
The mystical text Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a companion to the Zohar, that cornerstone of Kabbalah, hints at just such a mystery. It speaks of a relationship, an intimate ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar teaches that during Simchat Torah, a crown, a spiritual diadem, rests upon the head of every righteous person in the heavens. A crown, a symbo...
We all lead busy lives. But is that really what's being asked of us? to a fascinating passage from the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar to unpack this idea of constant Torah study...
