9,687 related texts · Page 38 of 202
Jewish tradition certainly recognizes that struggle. In fact, some texts get incredibly vivid about the forces at play. Imagine this: a group of sages are walking along, deep in co...
The Jewish mystical tradition, especially as explored in the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, has a lot to say about that feeling of anticipation, and how it connects us to somet...
It all begins with Marah. Remember the Israelites wandering in the desert after the Exodus? They’re thirsty, desperate, and finally, they find water! But… (Exodus 15:23) “they came...
It’s a question that the mystical tradition of Judaism, particularly the Zohar, has pondered for centuries. And in Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar 291, we find a fascinating, alm...
There is a direct road to God that does not require you to be a mystic or a saint. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi calls it the attribute of our patriarch Jacob: the path of compassi...
"And you shall plate it with pure gold" (Exodus 25:11). The Talmud (Sukkah 45b) reads the verse about the Tabernacle's acacia wood—"standing up" (Exodus 26:15)—to mean that the woo...
"And you shall command the Children of Israel" (Exodus 27:20). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, in Parashat Tetzaveh, asks a question that cuts to the heart of what tzaddik (a righteou...
Medieval Jewish belief held that the dead do not simply vanish. As Joshua Trachtenberg documented, the spirits of the deceased remained active, aware, and dangerously close—capable...
The most potent force in Jewish magic was not an herb, a stone, or a demon. It was a name. Joshua Trachtenberg demonstrated that the entire architecture of Jewish supernatural prac...
Dreams occupied a unique space in Jewish tradition—neither fully trusted nor fully dismissed, they hovered between divine communication and meaningless noise. The Talmud devotes ex...
The Hebrew word mazal (מזל) originally meant "constellation" or "star." Only gradually did it shift to mean "luck"—and the journey of that word tells the story of Jewish astrology ...
Rabbi Eliezer Hakappar Berebbi posed a rhetorical question that reveals something extraordinary about the Israelites during their centuries of slavery in Egypt. Did Israel not poss...
The Israelites spent twelve months in Egypt after Moses first appeared before Pharaoh. Twelve months of escalating plagues, mounting chaos, and growing anticipation of departure. D...
Rabbi Yonathan builds a towering logical structure to prove that Passover leftovers cannot be burned on the festival — and like Rabbi Yishmael, he argues the Torah did not need an ...
Rabbi Yitzchak enters the debate about burning Passover leftovers with yet another angle of attack, proving the same conclusion through a different logical comparison. His argument...
The Torah specifies in (Exodus 12:19) that the laws of Passover apply to both "the proselyte and the citizen of the land." The Mekhilta explains why this explicit mention of the co...
Rabbi Eliezer takes the most expansive position in this debate. Like the sages, he rules that a person fulfills the matzah obligation with all types of dough and with second-tithe ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, pauses on a detail in the Exodus narrative that seems redundant: "And they asked of Egypt vessels of silver and vessels of gold and r...
When the Israelites finally left Egypt, they did not leave empty-handed. The Torah describes them departing with "flocks and herds, a great crush of cattle" — a staggering processi...
God never let Israel go into exile alone. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) from approximately the 3rd century CE, tracks the She...
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, one of the most prominent Tannaitic sages, made a bold claim about why God chose to liberate Israel from Egypt. It was not because of anything the enslave...
How often must a person inspect their tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) to make sure the scrolls inside are still intact? The Mekhilta derives the answer through a...
(Exodus 13:19) "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him": This apprises us of the wisdom and saintliness of Moses. All of Israel were occupying themselves with the spoils (of E...
And, what is more, with (the casket of) Jacob there went up the servants of Pharaoh and the elders of his household, while with Joseph there went up the ark and the Shechinah and t...
When Moses gave the order to turn back toward Egypt — seemingly marching straight into danger — the people obeyed without argument. The Mekhilta says: "And they did so." Three word...
"And the heart of Pharaoh was reversed" (Exodus 14:5). The Mekhilta reads this reversal not as a change of mind about letting Israel go, but as the collapse of an empire. When Isra...
As Israel stood at the edge of the sea, they looked back and saw something terrifying. "And, behold, Egypt coming after them" (Exodus 14:10). The Mekhilta notices a grammatical det...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offers a vivid interpretation of God's attack on the Egyptian army during the crossing of the Red Sea, reading the verse "And He shall let fly His sha...
(Exodus 14:21) "And Moses stretched his hand over the sea": and the sea resisted—whereupon Moses commanded it to split in the name of the Holy One Blessed be He; but it continued t...
R. Yehudah perceives it thus: "And the children of Israel came in the midst of the sea": When the tribes were standing at the sea, each of them said: I will not go down first into ...
The students asked their teacher: "Master, you tell us — in what merit did the tribe of Judah attain kingship over Israel?" Rabbi Tarfon gave an answer that has echoed through Jewi...
Rabbi Yossi raises a startling possibility about the ten plagues. The destruction at the Red Sea, he argues, was not a separate event from the plagues in Egypt — it happened simult...
Variantly: "for high on high": He exalts Himself over the exalted. With what the nations of the world exalt themselves before Him, He exacts punishment of them. In the generation o...
The Mekhilta notices a subtle but important contradiction in the Song of the Sea and resolves it with a vivid image of what actually happened to the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Se...
The Mekhilta takes a single Hebrew word from the Song of the Sea — "ve'anvehu" — and shows how three different rabbis derive three entirely different meanings from it, each reveali...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael continues its catalog of enemies who rose against Israel and were struck down by heaven, turning now to one of the most dramatic military disasters in...
The Mekhilta draws a remarkable distinction between what the Red Sea was for Egypt and what it was for Israel. For the Egyptians, the sea was a sealed tomb. For the Israelites, it ...
The Mekhilta pauses on two words from (Exodus 15:10) — "mighty waters" — and asks a deceptively simple question: who in scripture is called "mighty"? The answer reveals a fourfold ...
The Egyptians drowned at the Red Sea — but they also received burial. The Mekhilta asks the obvious question: in what merit were the Egyptians granted burial? They had enslaved Isr...
When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the news sent shockwaves through the ancient world. The Mekhilta examines the verse "Then the chiefs of Edom were confounded" (Exodus 15:15...
R. Eliezer says: They journeyed by the word, for thus do we find in two or three places. What, then, is the intent of "And Moses made Israel journey?" He did so against their will,...
(Exodus 15:22) "And they went out to the desert of Shur": This is the desert of Kazav. They said about the desert of Kazav that it was nine hundred parasangs by nine hundred parasa...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai offered a surprising claim about what life was actually like for the Israelites in Egypt. Contrary to what one might expect from a nation of slaves, Israel liv...
Others say: "Refidim" is acronymic for "rifyon yadayim" ("weakness of hands"). Because the hands of Israel had weakened in Torah study, the foe came upon them, this transpiring onl...
(Exodus 17:12) records a detail that the Mekhilta found deeply instructive: "And the hands of Moses became heavy." Why did his hands grow heavy during the battle with Amalek? The r...
Rabbi Eliezer claimed that a single Hebrew word in the Torah contained an entire military history encoded as an acronym. The word is "vayachalosh," which appears in the account of ...
Moses begged God for permission to cross into the Promised Land. The word he used was "na" — a term the rabbis identified as pure imploration, the language of a person who knows th...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai examined the verse in which God tells Moses he will not cross the Jordan, and he declared: this verse is not needed. The Torah already states the same thing...
