9,687 related texts · Page 13 of 202
It turns out the Talmud and Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) are full of stories about them. And, interestingly, God seems to have taken special notice of their actions. ...
And, wouldn't you know it, the Rabbis of old had some pretty interesting ideas! In Vayikra Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic homilies on the Book of Leviticus, we find a fascinating...
“I called Your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit” (Lamentations 3:55).“I called Your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit” – this is Joseph, this is Jeremiah, this is Daniel...
The rabbis of Esther Rabbah made a stunning claim: every time the Hebrew word vayhi ("it was") appears in the Torah, it signals disaster. Rabbi Tanhuma, Rabbi Berekhya, and Rabbi H...
Jewish tradition is rich with stories of dreams and visions, and the power they hold. One particularly striking tale, found in Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz, tells of a dream th...
When Pharaoh decided to enslave the Israelites, he consulted three advisors. According to Sotah 11a, what happened to each of them perfectly matched the advice they gave. Balaam re...
The famine in the land was brutal. The people were starving. Desperate, Jacob turned to his sons: "Go again," he pleaded, "and procure food for us, that we die not." But his sons w...
Antiochus Eupator, son of the infamous Antiochus Epiphanes, inherited his father's hatred of the Jews. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle pre...
The Lord ordained that Judah Maccabee would not die in bed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, at the end ...
After the whole Joseph-selling fiasco, Jacob is understandably devastated. And who do the brothers blame? Judah, of course! They basically tell him, "This is ALL your fault!" Accor...
We all face temptations, big and small. But imagine being Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt, and facing down the relentless advances of his master's wife, Zuleika. It's a story of...
Remember Joseph, the dreamer? He's now in Egypt, and things are about to get really interesting. But not without some resistance. According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of th...
The Bible gives us a glimpse, but the Jewish tradition, particularly in works like Legends of the Jews by Ginzberg, really fills in the emotional and narrative gaps. The reunion, a...
The story of Judah confronting Joseph in Egypt is just that—a dramatic face-off fueled by family secrets, accusations, and the desperate need to protect a brother. The scene is set...
Take Joseph, for instance. His story is one of dramatic ups and downs, from slavery to becoming second-in-command in Egypt. But how did he find love? The answer, according to the a...
Today, we're going to delve into the final testament of Reuben, the eldest son. According to Legends of the Jews, a couple of years after Joseph's death, Reuben fell ill, sensing h...
Judah, one of Jacob's sons, married a Canaanite woman, and their firstborn was named Er, which poignantly means "the childless." As fate would have it, Er’s name was a prophecy. He...
Jewish tradition is full of this – names packed with meaning, whispers of destiny. a few, shall we? Take Shelumiel, for instance. Prince of the tribe of Simeon. Shelumiel means "My...
Joshua inherited an impossible job—replace the greatest prophet in history and lead a nation of former slaves into enemy territory. According to Josephus, he did not hesitate for a...
Three hundred men with clay jars and torches routed an army of over a hundred thousand. That is the story of Gideon, and according to Josephus, God designed it specifically so that...
Elisha inherited Elijah's mantle and immediately proved he was no lesser prophet. His miracles were stranger, more varied, and sometimes more violent than his master's. A widow of ...
Daniel was still a teenager when Nebuchadnezzar brought him to Babylon in chains. He and three companions from the royal family of Judah—Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—were given B...
When Aristobulus I died after just one year on the throne, his widow Salome Alexandra did something audacious. She released Aristobulus's brothers from prison, where he had kept th...
Herod was twenty-five years old when his father Antipater handed him the governorship of Galilee. His first act was to hunt down a band of raiders led by a man named Hezekiah who h...
The Mekhilta identifies one of the hidden miracles of the Egyptian exile: the Israelites never abandoned the Hebrew language. Despite living for centuries among Egyptian speakers, ...
Joseph's dying request to his brothers included a subtle but legally significant phrase: "And you shall bring up my bones from here with you" (Genesis 50:25). The Mekhilta zeroes i...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai offered his own version of the parable about Egypt's catastrophic miscalculation, and his telling amplified the scale of the blunder dramatically. A man inh...
“And in the first year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, at the completion of the word of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord aroused… So said Cyrus, the king of Persia… Who ...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha was captured as a child during the destruction of Jerusalem. He was sold into slavery, separated from his family, and taken far from the Land of Israel. Hi...
King Shapur of Persia once asked the sage Shmuel: "Tell me what I will see in my dream tonight." It was a test — could a Jewish sage truly predict what a foreign king would dream? ...
“Esther did not disclose her family or her people, as Mordekhai had commanded her; Esther followed Mordekhai’s instructions, as it was when she was fostered by him” (Esther 2:20).“...
The ancient texts grapple with this very human tendency, this slippery slope that can lead to societal breakdown. to the Book of Jubilees, a text that offers a fascinating, if some...
That’s the feeling I get whenever I read the story of Jacob’s dream in the Book of Jubilees. Here’s the scene: Jacob, all alone on a journey. The sun is setting, and he’s far from ...
He wasn’t just tired and looking for a place to rest his head. He stumbled upon something truly extraordinary. After a long journey, Jacob uses a stone as a pillow. He falls asleep...
The Book of Jubilees, for those unfamiliar, is an ancient Jewish text that retells the stories of Genesis and Exodus, but with a whole lot of extra detail and a unique perspective ...
We often hear the big stories, the grand narratives of faith and destiny. But what about the moments in between? The hidden struggles, the family dramas that shaped those monumenta...
The story, as told in the Letter of Aristeas, is a fascinating glimpse into a world of kings, scholars, and, well, a whole lot of money. The narrative picks up with a pressing matt...
The second heaven was darkness. Not ordinary darkness — not the darkness of a moonless night or a sealed room. This was a darkness thicker and heavier than anything on earth. A dar...
It wasn't just a solitary trek. It was the start of something far bigger. The story goes that Abraham, after his encounters with kings and potentates, didn't just walk away empty-h...
But what if that destiny also put your child in mortal danger from the moment they were born? That's exactly the predicament Terah, Abraham's father, found himself in. The story, a...
Take Abraham, for example. We know him as the patriarch, the father of our faith. But have you heard the legends of his battles? Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, paints a picture ...
We're talking about Judah, son of Jacob. The day before, Jacob himself had been locked in fierce battle. But morning arrives, and Judah sees his father's weariness. "Father," he sa...
The scene: Joseph, now a powerful figure in Egypt, has just made a demand. He wants one of his brothers to stay behind as a hostage, a guarantee of their good faith. It's a tense m...
The story of Joseph and his brothers, oh, it's dripping with that feeling. It's a tale of sibling rivalry, betrayal, and ultimately, reconciliation – a story that resonates even to...
Picture him gathering his sons around him, his voice perhaps a little weaker now, but his eyes still shining with conviction. He doesn't dwell on personal matters, or worldly posse...
That feeling, that terrible isolation, echoes powerfully in the story of Job. We all know the basic story: Job, the righteous man, suffers unimaginable losses. His wealth, his chil...
Pharaoh, in his… let's call it "wisdom," decided to use the Israelites for some major building projects: the cities of Pithom and Raamses. You know, the kind of infrastructure proj...
According to the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Even in the depths of oppression, the children of Israel held onto certain virtues, spark...
