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The Talmud claims you are never alone. According to Berakhot 6a, the sage Abba Binyamin taught that if the human eye were granted permission to see demons, no living creature could...
According to Chagigah 12a, there are seven heavens stacked above the earth, each with a distinct name and function. Reish Lakish listed them: Vilon, Rakia, Shehakim, Zevul, Ma'on, ...
Before you were born, you knew everything. According to Niddah 30b, an angel teaches each soul the entire Torah while the baby is still in the womb. A light burns above the child's...
The Hebrew Bible opens with "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Targum Onkelos, the authoritative Aramaic translation read alongside the Torah ...
The Hebrew Bible says the serpent told Eve, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). Targum Onkelos changes one word: "You will be like great ones." Not God. Gr...
The Hebrew Bible says "the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were fair" (Genesis 6:2). Targum Onkelos changes "sons of God" to "sons of rulers." This single substitution el...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses came to "the mountain of God" at Horeb (Exodus 3:1). Targum Onkelos specifies: "the mountain on which the Glory of God was revealed." The mountain is no...
The Hebrew Bible says Moses, Aaron, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy elders "saw the God of Israel" (Exodus 24:10). This is an extraordinary claim—direct visual perception of the divine. ...
It was said before Abraham was born. Nimrod was a heretic concerning the truth of the lord blessed be he. He was conceited and he said that he himself was a God. And the people of ...
Ten decrees were decreed upon Adam, ten upon Eve, ten upon the serpent, and ten upon the earth: Ten upon man: He was clothed in garments of splendor, but God stripped them from him...
Sefer HaBahir or Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana, as it is attributed to him, is a profound and wondrous book of Kabbalah, and it is held in gre...
The Book of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) [Reishit Chochmah: Gate of Fear: Chapter 12; Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary): Section 1] It...
On the last day of his life, Moses did something no prophet had ever done — he dressed his successor in public, with his own hands. He commanded that a golden throne be brought, al...
Seventy Names of Metatron: The book "Seventy Names of Metatron", which Rabbi Yishmael revealed, 23 of which he received when he ascended on high. The book was brought to print by R...
When God created the first man from the dust of the earth, He looked at Adam standing alone and said what the Torah itself records: "It is not good for this man to be alone" (Genes...
"Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Esfah": This midrash is based on the verse "Gather for me seventy men" (Numbers 11:16), explaining the names of those seventy individual...
The Holy One created twenty-two good attributes in His world. All of them were nullified and in the future the Holy One will return them to Israel in the time to come. They are: fo...
"Zohar Chadash": It consists of some esoteric Torah teachings (letters), verses, and Mishnaic teachings with a concealed Midrash on the Torah and the Song of Songs, as well as some...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Levanat HaSapir is a midrash on the Torah in the style of kabbalah, in Aramaic like the Zohar. It is not extant before us today. The Yuha...
“And of Benjamin he said, The Lord's beloved…” (Devarim 33:12) One verse says “As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out…” (...
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai boarded a ship bound for Rome on a mission to the emperor. That night, on the water, a figure appeared in his dream. It was Ashmedai, king of the demons. "A...
R. Isaac b. Samuel in the name of Rab said: "Three watches has the night and at the beginning of every watch the Holy One, praised be He! sits and roars like a lion and says 'Woe t...
[It is written] (Ps. 66:1) A prayer of David, preserve my soul, for I am pious. R. Levi and R. Isaac both explain this passage. One said : "Thus said David before the Holy One, pra...
(Fol. 5a) R. Levi b. Chama, in the name of Simon b. Lakish said: "At all times let man stir up his good inclination against the evil inclination), for it is said (Ps. 4:5) Tremble,...
Buried in the Ein Yaakov's collection from Berakhot is a teaching that sounds more like ancient medical advice than religious law: "The rabbis taught that asparagus is good for the...
(19) On New Year's Day all the inhabitants of the world pass before Him, Kibne Maron. What is the meaning of Kibne Maron? Here (in Babylonia) they translated it "like sheep." But R...
(24) (Fol. 21b) It is written (Ps. 12, 7) The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver refined in the crucible of earth, purified seven times. Rab and Samuel both explain it. On...
Nimrod declared himself a god to be worshipped. He made a round tower of stone planted in the midst of the earth, and placed a throne of cedar on the stone, and upon this one of ir...
Miriam and her seven sons died as martyrs for their holy faith. Each of her sons refused to worship idols quoting the appropriate passages from the Bible. When the last boy was cal...
The labourers of R. Nahman b. Isaac removed a small mound, when a man sprang up from underneath. He had been buried long before but did not rot, because he had been patient and mee...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Yose was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem — one of the three annual journeys that every Jewish man was commanded to undertake. Along the way, he passed through ...
After the death of Moses, an emperor — some say it was a Roman ruler centuries later — heard rumors that the greatest prophet who ever lived was buried somewhere on Mount Nebo. He ...
Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), once served food to Rabbi Yehoshua with his own hands. He stood and poured wine for his guest as though he w...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 75a) records a breathtaking vision of the future Jerusalem: its gates would be made of single pearls, each pearl so enormous that it could be carved into a g...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but was taken alive to heaven (2 Kings 2:11) — appears throughout rabbinic literature as a mysterious figure who walks the earth in disguise, te...
Simeon ben Rabbi forgot to invite Bar Kappara to dinner. The latter wrote on the door: ‘‘After joy death.” Invited afterwards to another dinner, he kept the guests so amused by his...
The death of Rabbi Akiba in a Roman prison was one of the most sacred and terrible events in all of Jewish history. The greatest sage of his generation, the man who had laughed on ...
Rebuke not the wicked lest you make an enemy. Having thus spent all his money he went to another town. There a man asked a scribe to write a petition, offer- ding a small coin. The...
When Jacob fled from his brother Esau and set out on the long road to Haran, he stopped at a place called Bethel and made a vow to God. "If God will be with me and guard me on this...
Ben Sabar was traveling home one evening when he came upon a young orphan girl weeping by the side of the road. She had no family, no dowry, and no one willing to marry her. Withou...
The birth of Moses was no ordinary event. According to the ancient chronicles preserved in Jerahmeel and the writings of Josephus, the arrival of Israel's greatest prophet was prec...
A desperately poor woman came before the prophet Elijah with nothing in the world except a single coin. She had no family to support her, no trade to sustain her, and no prospect o...
Man Who Would Not Swear. Ben Atar, No. 5, f. 23 a. Midr. Decalogue, III, 2. Nissim, Reprinted Sef. Hayashar, Livorno 1862, f. I39bf. Yalk. Exod. II, p. 138. Farhi, O. P. I, f. 26 a...
The Angel of Death came to an inn — and found the innkeeper so stingy, so devoid of charity, that even the angel was disgusted. The story, preserved in medieval Jewish ethical coll...
Angelology constitutes the theological branch examining "superhuman beings dwelling in heaven, who, on occasion, reveal to man God's will and execute His commands." This doctrine d...
Prince of the demons, and an important figure both in Talmudic and in post-Talmudic literature, where he appears as accuser, seducer, and destroyer. His name is etymologized as = "...
The Throne of Glory is an important feature in the Cabala. It is placed at the highest point of the universe (Ḥag. 12b); and is of the same color as the sky—purple-blue, like the "...
Metatron is the name of an angel found only in Jewish literature. Elisha b. Abuyah, seeing this angel in the heavens, believed there were "two powers" or divinities (Hag. 15a). Whe...
