9,687 related texts · Page 104 of 202
"The ox of your foe" — who is the "foe" the Torah refers to? The Mekhilta records multiple interpretations. In one reading, the idolators of the nations are called "foes" of Israel...
(Exodus 23:5) addresses the obligation to help an enemy's animal that is struggling under its burden: "If you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden." The Mekhilta par...
The Mekhilta presents a striking conflict between two obligations. A Kohen — a priest — encounters a lost or struggling animal in a cemetery. Jewish law prohibits a Kohen from ente...
The Mekhilta confronts one of the hardest questions in any legal system: what happens when you know the defendant is guilty — not of this particular charge, but in general? The ver...
If they saw him pursuing another to kill him, the knife in his hand, and they said to him: Be it known to you that he is a son of the covenant, and the Torah writes "and a clean on...
Yehudah ben Tabbai once entered a ruin and found a man in his death throes. A knife dripping with blood was in the hand of another man — clearly the murderer. Yehudah turned to the...
The Mekhilta addresses a critical question in Jewish criminal law: what happens when new incriminating evidence emerges after a defendant has already been acquitted? The Torah stat...
—in Torah. You say, the wise in Torah, but perhaps (the meaning is) "the wise," literally; it is, therefore, written "blinds pikchim"—the bright of mind, who rule clean or unclean ...
Rabbi Nathan interpreted the verse "and perverts the words of the righteous" (Exodus 23:8) as referring to something far more severe than ordinary judicial corruption. The one who ...
"and you shall gather in its produce (11) and the seventh year, etc.": to include (as forbidden) the fruits of the sixth year which enter the seventh year. This tells me only of th...
"And there be refreshed the son of your maid-servant" — this verse about Sabbath rest mentions a "maid-servant's son." The Mekhilta identifies this as an uncircumcised Canaanite se...
"and the stranger": This refers to a ger toshav (a "sojourning stranger [one who shuns idolatry and observes the seven Noachide laws]). But perhaps it refers to a ger tzedek (a "ri...
Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest sages of the Talmudic era, offered a distinctive legal ruling about when non-Jewish residents in the Land of Israel render wine forbidden to Jews. ...
(Exodus 23:13) says: "And everything that I have spoken of to you, you shall observe." The Mekhilta asks what this general command adds to the specific Sabbath prohibition of (Exod...
The Torah commands in (Exodus 23:13): "And the name of other gods you shall not mention." The Mekhilta expands this prohibition far beyond what a casual reading might suggest. It i...
The Mekhilta catalogs the names used to describe idolatry and contrasts them with the names used to describe God. The contrast is devastating. Idolatry is mentioned only in derogat...
(Exodus 23:18) "You shall not slaughter in the presence of chametz the blood of My sacrifice": You shall not slaughter the Pesach (Passover) offering while chametz is still present...
The Torah commands regarding the Passover sacrifice that "there shall not remain the fat of My festival offering until morning." The Mekhilta takes this verse and extracts from it ...
(Exodus 23:19) prohibits: "You shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk." Rabbi Shimon asked why this prohibition is stated three times in the Torah — here, in (Exodus 34:26), and...
Variantly: whether non-consecrated or consecrated (animals). Rebbi says: Because it is written (in the same context as meat and milk) "the first of the fruits of your land," I migh...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a sharp legal debate about the prohibition against cooking meat and milk together. The rabbis use a technique called kal va-chomer — reasoning...
Issi ben Guria demonstrated that eating meat cooked in milk is forbidden through a verbal comparison between two passages. The word "holiness" appears in (Deuteronomy 14:21), where...
The Mekhilta pushes the meat-and-milk prohibition further. What about cooking an animal's flesh in its own milk? Not the mother's milk, not a sister's milk, but the milk the animal...
Can goat's milk be used to cook sheep's flesh? The species are different — goats and sheep — but both are domesticated livestock. The Mekhilta extends the prohibition through yet a...
"You shall not cook a goat in its mother's milk" — the Mekhilta derives from this verse that the cooking prohibition applies specifically to meat and milk, and not to other combina...
R. Yishmael and R. Elazar b. Azaryah and R. Akiva were once walking on the road, with Levi Hasadar and R. Yishmael the son of R. Elazar b. Azaryah walking behind them, when this qu...
The Torah declares about the Sabbath: "for it is holy to you" (Exodus 31:14). The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws from this phrase a remarkable teaching about how Sabbath observanc...
Rabbi Yehudah ben Betheira addressed a question that must have been painfully real for Jews living under foreign occupation: what happens when enemy armies force you to violate the...
"For whoever does work upon it, that soul shall be cut off" — the Mekhilta specifies that this refers to "a complete work." The full prohibition applies only when a person complete...
"It is a sign forever" — the Mekhilta derives from this phrase that the Sabbath will never be lost from Israel. No matter what happens — exile, persecution, assimilation pressures ...
Two verses in the Torah appear to contradict each other on the subject of work during the six days before Shabbat (the Sabbath). One verse says "Six days may work be done," using a...
And, furthermore, it follows a fortiori, viz.: If on shemitah, transgression of which is liable to neither kareth (cutting-off) nor judicial death penalty, he rests from shemitah e...
The Torah says "You may not light a fire in all of your dwellings" on the Sabbath. But what about executions ordered by a court? The judicial death penalty of burning requires fire...
The Mekhilta concludes its treatment of the Sabbath fire prohibition with a clean summary of the legal principle. Lighting a fire was one of the thirty-nine proto-labors forbidden ...
Jewish tradition offers a stunningly beautiful image: Our prayers, all of them, rise up and become a crown for God. The image comes to us from several sources, each adding its own ...
The Torah actually grapples with this very question, and the answer, as you might expect, is layered and fascinating. : Moses, standing before the burning bush, is tasked with lead...
And the Torah, in its own way, grapples with this very question. We find ourselves in the Book of Exodus, a pivotal moment in the story of the Israelites. Moses is about to ascend ...
We pray to God. But…does God pray? And if so, to whom? The mystics have wrestled with these questions for centuries, and the answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is layered and fascinat...
We often think of prayer as something we do, a way to connect with the Divine. But Jewish tradition sometimes paints a different picture, one where God, in a sense, prays too. How ...
Jewish tradition dares to imagine a God who weeps. And perhaps nowhere is that more powerfully depicted than in the legends surrounding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. ...
The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem – twice – is one of the most profound traumas in Jewish history. It’s not just about losing a building; it’s about losing a connection, a...
There was a time, a very dark time, when God Himself considered doing just that. Imagine the scene: The Temple in Jerusalem lies in ruins. The people of Israel are in exile, weepin...
We often picture the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, guiding them, protecting them. But what if I told you there's a tradition that paints an even more inti...
Jewish tradition offers a powerful, heart-wrenching image: Mother Zion. The image of Mother Zion comes from a deep well of sorrow and longing, born from the exiles and devastations...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of describing this feeling: the wandering of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah, often translated as "divine presence," is under...
This is the story we're diving into today: the mourning over the Shekhinah, the divine feminine presence, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s a powerful myth, on...
Bava Metzia 59b), a story about rabbinic authority and, surprisingly, God's good-natured acceptance of it. It all starts with a disagreement. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a renowned...
It might surprise you. Imagine all the angels gathered, a celestial court in session. They turn to the Master of the Universe himself and ask, "What day is Rosh ha-Shanah?" That's ...
