9,687 related texts · Page 93 of 202
Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews bore a reputation as the most powerful sorcerers in Europe. As scholar Joshua Trachtenberg documented in his 1939 study, this belief was so widespr...
If demons crowded the dark spaces of medieval Jewish life, angels filled the light. Joshua Trachtenberg showed that Jewish angelology was not merely theological—it was operational....
The most widely practiced form of Jewish magic required no special training, no secret names, no angelic invocations. It required only a Bible. As Joshua Trachtenberg documented, m...
The boundary between medicine and magic barely existed in medieval Jewish life. Physicians recited psalms over patients. Rabbis prescribed amulets alongside herbal remedies. And th...
The Torah lists the patriarchs in a specific order: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In (Exodus 3:6), God introduces Himself to Moses at the burning bush as "the God of your father, the ...
Before King Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah, the divine presence had no fixed address. The Shechinah — God's indwelling presence — could rest anywhere within the city of J...
Before Aaron was chosen for the priesthood, every member of Israel was eligible to serve as a priest. The entire nation stood on equal footing when it came to approaching God throu...
Before David was chosen (as king) every Israelite was kasher for kingship. Once David had been chosen, the other Israelites (i.e., those not in his line) were excluded. As it is wr...
We find there to have been three (kinds of) prophets. One claimed the honor of the Father and the father of the son; another, the honor of the Father, but not the honor of the son;...
R. Shimon b. Azzai said: I do not come to detract from my master's words, but to add to them, viz.: Not to Moses alone did He speak in the merit of Israel, but to all of the prophe...
And thus do you find with Baruch the soon of Neriah, who complained before the L–rd, (Ibid. 45:3) "You (Baruch) say: Woe unto me, the L–rd has added grief to my pain!" (You say:) W...
"This month": Nissan. You say it is Nissan. But perhaps it was some other month of the year? It is written (Exodus 23:16) "And the festival of the ingathering (Succoth) at the end ...
(Exodus 12:2) "The beginning of the months": We are hereby apprised that Nissan is the beginning for the months. And whence do we derive (the same for) the reign of kings? From (I ...
Rabbi Yonathan taught a striking principle about eclipses. Both solar and lunar eclipses, he declared, were given as signs — but not for Israel. They were relegated entirely to the...
R. Nathan says "Observe the month of Aviv"—Observe the month which is closest to Aviv. And which is that? Adar. But we have not heard how many (days) are to be intercalated. From "...
Rabbi Yoshiyah raised a question that touches the very structure of the Jewish calendar: who has the authority to add an extra month to the year? The Hebrew calendar is lunar, and ...
The Torah instructs that when preparing for the Paschal lamb, if a household is too small to consume the entire animal, they should share it with "the neighbor near his house" (Exo...
Rabbi Yishmael preserved a practical but fascinating rule about how the original Passover sacrifice worked in Egypt. The Paschal lamb was not a solo affair — families and neighbors...
R. Eliezer says: Sheep for the Pesach (Passover) and cattle for the chagigah. You say this, but perhaps both are for the Pesach? And how would I understand "an unblemished lamb, et...
R. Akiva says: One verse states "And you shall slaughter the Pesach (Passover) to the L–rd your G–d, sheep and cattle," and another, "From the sheep and from the goats shall you ta...
Rabbi Yishmael confronted a puzzle in (Deuteronomy 16:2), which says: "And you shall slaughter the Passover to your God — sheep and cattle." But the Passover offering is supposed t...
Rebbi — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — offered an alternative reading of (Deuteronomy 16:2): "And you shall slaughter the Passover to your God — sheep and cattle." Rather than identifying ...
The Mekhilta makes a striking claim about the moral character of the Israelites in Egypt: they were not guilty of sexual immorality. The proof comes from an unexpected source — a v...
"And they shall slaughter it": whether on a weekday or on a Sabbath. And how would I satisfy (Exodus 31:14) "Its (Sabbath's) profaners shall be put to death"? With other labors, as...
The Mekhilta uncovers a contradiction in the Torah's timeline that forces a radical rethinking of when the Passover sacrifice actually happened. Deuteronomy commands, "There shall ...
Rabbi Nathan takes on a question that had puzzled scholars of the Torah for generations: what does the Hebrew phrase ben ha'arbayim actually mean? The term appears in the Passover ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, one of the most brilliant and mystically inclined sages in all of rabbinic literature, offers a reading of the Passover timeline that is as precise as a wa...
Ben Betheira tackled one of the most practical and debated questions in all of Passover law: when exactly should the Paschal lamb be slaughtered? The Torah gives a poetic instructi...
And whence is it derived that in the absence of matzoh and maror one fulfills his obligation with the Pesach (Passover)? From "shall they eat it" (in any event). I might think that...
The Torah's instructions for eating the Passover lamb include a phrase that seems straightforward but contains a legal depth charge: "with matzoth and maror shall they eat it" (Exo...
The Torah says the Passover lamb must not be "cooked in water" (Exodus 12:9). Water is specified. But Rabbi Yishmael immediately sees the problem: what about wine? What about fruit...
Rabbi Akiva, the towering sage who reshaped all of rabbinic Judaism, offers his own answer to the question of why the Torah only mentions water when prohibiting the cooking of the ...
"uvashel": "bashel" (here refers to flesh that was) roasted (before, the understanding being that it is forbidden to cook it even if it had been roasted previously), as in (Devarim...
The Torah gives strict instructions about Passover leftovers: "You shall not leave over anything of it until the morning, and what is left over of it until the morning, in fire sha...
"And thus shall you eat it" (Exodus 12:11) — the Torah prescribes not just what to eat on Passover night, but how to eat it. Loins girded. Sandals on your feet. Staff in hand. Eat ...
The night of the tenth plague was unlike anything Egypt had ever witnessed. Every firstborn in the land — from the heir of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the firstborn of the cap...
The Torah's description of the tenth plague contains a phrase that seems redundant but actually expands the scope of the devastation far beyond Egypt's borders: "and I smote every ...
Rabbi Yoshiyah offered a creative reading of the Hebrew word "ufasachti" — "and I will pass over you" — from the Passover narrative. He said: do not read it as "ufasachti" but as "...
R. Yonathan says: "and I will skip over you." I will be compassionate to you, but not to the Egyptians. I might think that an Egyptian in a Jewish house would be rescued. It is, th...
The rabbis of the Mekhilta press deeper into the logic of the festival offering, deploying one of the Talmud's most powerful reasoning tools: the kal va-chomer, the argument from l...
The Torah says that Passover must be observed "for your generations" (Exodus 12:14), and the Mekhilta immediately spots a potential loophole. The Hebrew word for "generations" is "...
It must, therefore, be written "Seven [and not six] days shall you eat matzoth." (Ibid. 15) "Only on the first day": This makes (the eating of matzoth on) the first day mandatory a...
One verse (15) states "Seven days shall you eat matzoth," and a second (Devarim 16:8) "Six days shall you eat matzoth." How are these two verses to be reconciled? The seventh day w...
Two verses in the Torah appear to contradict each other on a basic question: how many days must one eat matzah during Passover? One verse says six days. Another says seven. The Mek...
Rabbi Akiva cuts through an elaborate derivation with a single, clean observation — a move that captures his characteristic directness as a legal mind. The question under debate is...
Would you say that? There is a difference (between neveilah, [from which benefit may be derived] and chametz, [from which benefit may not be derived,], so that the resultant equati...
The Mekhilta continues its relentless cross-examination of Rabbi Yehudah's position that chametz must be destroyed specifically by burning. A new argument emerges — and a new count...
I will derive four determinants from four like determinants. Nothar is forbidden in eating, and in derivation of benefit, and it is subject to kareth, and it is time (i.e., Pesach ...
