3,765 related texts · 59 related myths · Page 2 of 79
Dawn in the house of Abraham. Bread on a shoulder. A cruse of water tied to a woman's waist. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:14), the Aramaic paraphrase adds a detail the ...
When the angel finally calls from heaven, the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:17) gives the reason out loud: for the righteousness' sake of Abraham. Ishmael lives not beca...
A king with a general at his side walks out to the tent of a stranger. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:22), Abimelech and Phikol, chief of his host, come to Abraham with a...
A well in the Negev. Seven ewe lambs set apart. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:32), the Aramaic preserves the ancient name of the place, Beira de-Sheva, the Well of the S...
At the foot of the mountain, Abraham turns to his servants and speaks a sentence every reader has struggled with. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:5), the Aramaic expands t...
I'm talking about the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. The familiar story is this: Abraham, tested to the absolute limit, raises his knife to sacrifice his son Isaac. It's a scene tha...
Isaac was twenty-five years old when his father took him up the mountain to die. He didn't resist. The Josephus says this is what makes the Akedah (עקידה), the Binding of Isaac, so...
The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a profound Kabbalistic text, explores these mysteries, revealing that the essence of this Chariot resides in specific names of AV. What is AV? It’s a c...
Seriously, Do they zip around at the speed of light? Or do they… well, dawdle a bit? Our story begins, as so many do, in the Book of Genesis, chapter 19, verse 1: “The two angels c...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Abraham Sends Hagar and Ishmael into the Desert. The verse tells us, "Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave them ...
The angel has commanded Lot to flee to the mountain. Lot looks at the rising sun and the distant ridges and says, in (Genesis 19:19), a deeply human thing. "Behold, now, thy servan...
(Genesis 19:35) completes the pattern begun two nights earlier. "And they made their father drink wine that night also, and he was drunk, and the younger arose, and lay with him; a...
The story of Abraham and Isaac, the Akeidah (the binding), grapples with these very questions. Abraham and Sarah, living in the Land of Israel, yearned for a child. Their lives wer...
The familiar story centers on Abraham and Isaac, but there are so many layers, so many whispers of other perspectives woven into that intense moment. The Book of Jubilees is an anc...
More specifically, it's the year Abraham passed away. And where are his sons, Isaac and Ishmael? They’re making a journey. The Book of Jubilees, a text considered canonical by the ...
We remember him most vividly, perhaps, from the Binding of Isaac, the Akeidah. A moment of ultimate faith, ultimate sacrifice averted at the last possible second. But what about th...
The Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating ancient Jewish text that retells and expands upon biblical narratives, offers a compelling example through the story of Lot. Lot is famili...
Jacob dreamed, and a ladder stood from earth to heaven (Genesis 28:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills the rungs with specific traffic. The two angels on the ladder were not anon...
The story, of course, is from (Genesis 19:9). Lot, Abraham's nephew, has welcomed two angelic guests into his home. The men of Sodom, consumed by lust and cruelty, surround the hou...
(Genesis 20:4) is remarkable for how boldly Abimelech speaks back to Heaven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "But Abimelek had not come nigh to defile her; and he said, Lord, shall the son...
The familiar story is this:. The wicked city, the angels disguised as travelers, the impending doom. But have you ever stopped to consider just how far gone the people of Sodom wer...
Legends of the Jews turns to Abraham — The Binding of Isaac. The Torah gives us a glimpse, but the Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, drawing on centuries of midrashic (rabbini...
They're complaining, as people do when they’re hungry and thirsty and unsure of what tomorrow holds. They should have been praying! But instead of getting angry, God, in a moment o...
The familiar story is this: Abraham, tested by God, is commanded to sacrifice his beloved son. But what happened to Isaac in those heart-stopping moments? The familiar Genesis acco...
Sometimes, those hidden depths hold the most fascinating secrets. Take the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. The familiar version gives us the basics, but what about the detail...
The tenth trial, according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, is the one that tests Abraham most sharply. "And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham" (Genesis 22:1...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer turns to The Three Days Abraham and Isaac Walked to Moriah. The scene is stark. Abraham, having passed test after test, now faces the ultimate trial: to sacr...
The newborn in Sarah's arms is laughter made flesh. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:7), she remembers who first carried the promise to her tent: not a man, not a neighbor,...
Here is one of the strangest verses in the Targum, and one of the most historically suggestive. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 21:21), Ishmael grows up in the wilderness of ...
The Torah in (Genesis 25:17) gives us a short obituary for Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years, and then he "expired and was gathered to his people." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan...
Twenty years of marriage and no child. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:21) says Isaac did not pray in his tent, did not pray in his field, did not pray at the local altar. He...
Our story begins with Abraham. "Abraham traveled from there," the verse tells us (Genesis 20:1). But where was he going, and why? Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic ...
Bereshit Rabbah turns to Abraham Saddles His Donkey for the Binding of Isaac. Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai, a prominent figure in the Talmudic era, makes a striking observation. He says ...
In Bereshit Rabbah, the classic midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) (interpretive) text on Genesis, we find a fascinating discussion, a divergence of opinions on the natur...
They gave us a whole treasure trove of interpretations, embellishments, and downright fascinating tales to flesh things out. The verse in question? (Genesis 16:15): "Hagar brought ...
"Remember what Amalek did to you" (Deuteronomy 25:17). God remembers the righteous for good and the wicked for destruction. When He recalled Abraham, He spoke with affection: "Shal...
Abraham is not tired yet. In (Genesis 18:29) he descends one rung further in his negotiation, and the Targum spells out the logic most translations hide. "Perhaps there may be fort...
(Genesis 20:7) is the final piece of God's word to Abimelech in the dream. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "And now let the wife of the man return; for he is a prophet; he will pray for th...
And it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham (Genesis 22:1). Rabbi Yochanan, speaking in the name of Rabbi Yossi ben Zimra, asks in Sanhedrin 89b: after what thin...
(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 familiar story is this: Abraham and Sarah, finally blessed with a child in their old age. But what if there was more to the story than meets the eye? What if, as some ancient t...
The ultimate test of faith, a moment of divine intervention, and the substitution of a ram in the nick of time. But where exactly did this all go down? The Book of Jubilees, an anc...
Fire and brimstone, a pillar of salt, and some very unhappy angels. But the details… the details are truly something else. The Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews says it wasn’t just So...
The familiar story is this: Abraham, his faith tested to the absolute limit, is commanded to sacrifice his beloved son. But what about the ram, the creature that ultimately takes I...
The Binding of Isaac, or Akedat Yitzhak as it's known in Hebrew, is one of those stories. It’s right there in the book of Genesis, chapter 22, verses 1 through 19. It's a cornersto...
The tradition tells us that he did. The scene: Abraham, his father, raises the knife. But according to some accounts, Isaac's eyes weren't fixed on the blade. Instead, they were dr...
The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) starts with a powerful statement: "God's way is perfect." And it connects this perfection to Abraham, pointing to the verse in Genesi...
It's a tough story, full of uncomfortable choices, and the rabbis in Bereshit Rabbah, that treasure trove of early commentary, don't shy away from wrestling with it. Remember the s...
