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The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet as it's known in Hebrew, certainly did. It observes, "I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking on the ground like servants" (Eccle...
We're diving into the tale of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and a rather...uncomfortable encounter. The Book of Jubilees, by the way, is an ancient Jewish text that retel...
The Book of Jubilees, for those unfamiliar, is an ancient Jewish work that retells the stories of Genesis and Exodus, but with a whole lot of extra detail and a very particular poi...
After Simeon and Levi destroyed the men of Shechem, a great terror fell over every city in the region. The nations said: "If two sons of Jacob could exterminate an entire town, wha...
Potiphar's wife tried every day to seduce Joseph. She dressed in her finest ornaments, changed her clothes constantly, and spoke to him with increasing urgency. But Joseph mastered...
Judah Maccabee did not wait to be attacked. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, when the Macedonian general...
Let’s talk about Joseph, and that infamous pit. The story begins with Jacob's sons, out tending their father's flocks near Shechem. They were gone a long time, and Jacob, naturally...
He's just heard an unbelievable story. A preposterous tale. Two men – just two – had laid waste to an entire city. A city filled with people who couldn’t defend themselves and were...
This is the weight of the story we're about to unpack, drawn from Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews. It begins with a warning, a plea really. "Therefore let these words of mine which ...
Ever hear a story so outlandish, so dripping with bias, that you just have to raise an eyebrow and ask, "Really?" That's exactly the kind of tale we're diving into today, thanks to...
Antipater wanted the throne so badly he was willing to destroy every member of his own family to get it. And for a while, it worked. According to Josephus in Antiquities XVI, Antip...
You're not alone. But what is that "realness" we experience in dreams? In a dream, one moment you're flying, the next you're talking to your long-lost great aunt Mildred in a field...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev addresses a question that Nachmanides raised about Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream: if Joseph predicted seven years of famine but the f...
The confrontation between Judah and Joseph in Egypt was not simply a family dispute. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads it as a cosmic collision between two forms of kingship....
The Torah speaks "to Moses and to Aaron" — in that order. Moses first, Aaron second. A natural reading would assume this reflects a hierarchy: Moses is the greater, Aaron the lesse...
The ancient rabbis certainly did, and they poured those feelings, along with their hopes and fears, into their interpretations of scripture. to one such interpretation found in Mid...
The standard Torah tells us that Jacob traveled to Beersheba and offered sacrifices before heading down to Egypt. But Targum Jonathan, the ancient Aramaic translation dating to the...
The Torah tells us that Moses was born, hidden, found by Pharaoh's daughter, and eventually fled to Midian. Targum Jonathan fills in the gaps with miracles, secret identities, and ...
Three clever Jewish slaves, sold into captivity after the destruction of the Temple, outwitted their Roman masters using nothing but their wits. Each was given an impossible task, ...
Elijah, Slave & Builder. Yalk. Reubeni, Gen. f. 9b. Eliah Cohen, Meil Se- daka, § 568. Farhi, O. P. I, f. 28. Sef. Hamaasiyot, ed. Araki Cohen, ch. 104. Eisenstein, Oser, p. 325. Y...
It might be more surprising – and down-to-earth – than you think. Our text from Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, dives into...
The verse in question is from (Genesis 38:15): “Judah saw her and thought her to be a harlot, because she covered her face.” What's so significant about this seemingly simple obser...
We're looking at Chapter 85, which tackles the complex story of Judah and Tamar. Remember the story? Judah, grieving the loss of his wife, encounters Tamar, disguised as a prostitu...
The story of Judah and Tamar, found in Genesis 38, is a powerful exploration of just that. And the Rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, unpack the layers of this narrative in Bereshit...
Here, the rabbis are exploring the verse in (Genesis 44:8), where Joseph's brothers, completely innocent of any wrongdoing, exclaim, "Behold, silver that we found in the opening of...
“Judah was exiled due to affliction and great enslavement. She settled among the nations, did not find rest; all her pursuers have overtaken her within the straits” (Lamentations 1...
Our story comes from the Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church but not by most of mainstream Judaism. Think of it as a kind of ...
Talk about pressure. The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that retells and expands upon stories from the Hebrew Bible, gives us a glimpse into this pivotal moment. So, pict...
The Book of Jubilees certainly thinks so. It retells familiar biblical narratives, but with a unique perspective, filling in details and offering its own interpretations. to a snip...
The brothers of Joseph certainly did. Remember them? They who sold their own brother into slavery? Well, their story takes another twist in the Book of Jubilees, specifically chapt...
The Bible gives us glimpses, but the Book of Jasher, an ancient Hebrew text referenced in the Bible itself (Joshua 10:13, (2 Samuel 1:1)8), offers a more detailed narrative.. The c...
The Torah, in the story of Joseph, doesn’t shy away from those very human emotions. In fact, it puts them front and center. The brothers of Joseph, were seething. And it all starte...
We often think about actions, the concrete things we do (or don't do). But what about those times when we meant to do something good, even if it didn't quite pan out? The Jewish tr...
The jealousy, the betrayal, the selling into slavery. But what about the moments in between? Were they all heartless? Well, according to Legends of the Jews, not entirely. Imagine ...
Take, for example, the story of Joseph and his brothers. We know about the coat, the jealousy, the slavery in Egypt… but what about their lives outside of that central drama? Inter...
He's interpreting dreams in prison. It all seems so straightforward in the biblical narrative. But let's dig a little deeper, shall we? The Torah tells us that Joseph correctly for...
After years of hardship, false accusations, and imprisonment, Joseph's fortunes take a dramatic turn. Pharaoh, impressed by Joseph's wisdom and ability to interpret dreams, elevate...
Take the story of Joseph and his brothers. Talk about a tangled web! We all know the story. Joseph, the favored son, gets sold into slavery in Egypt. Years pass. He rises to power,...
We pick up the story with high drama. They arrive in Egypt, unknowingly standing before the very brother they sold into slavery years before. Joseph, now a powerful figure, sees th...
According to Legends of the Jews, a monumental work compiled by Louis Ginzberg, the brothers spoke freely, thinking their words were veiled by the interpreter, Manasseh. Little did...
Can you feel the tension hanging in the air? That's the scene as Joseph, now a powerful figure in Egypt, finally sits down to eat with his brothers – the very ones who sold him int...
In the stories surrounding Joseph, the son of Jacob, we find just that kind of mystical insight woven into the narrative. Remember the story? Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt by ...
We know the dramatic scene: the tears, the shock, the overwhelming relief. But what about the details, the lingering questions? According to the Legends of the Jews, Joseph wasn't ...
Remember, Joseph, now a powerful figure in Egypt, has finally revealed himself to his brothers, the same brothers who sold him into slavery years ago. It's a dramatic reunion fille...
We're diving into a fascinating episode from Legends of the Jews, specifically dealing with the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. We all remember the story of Joseph being...
After years of famine, Joseph, now the all-powerful viceroy of Egypt, finally reveals himself to his brothers. Can you imagine their shock? "Ye see it with your own eyes," Joseph d...
The story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis, and the elaborations on it in later Jewish tradition, offer a powerful counter-narrative to that feeling. : Joseph, sold into slavery by...
We know him for his dreams, his betrayal, and his rise to power in Egypt, but according to tradition, there was so much more to him. Joseph earned the title "the God-fearing one"—a...
