1,822 related texts · Page 21 of 38
The Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, apparently did – and according to one story, he nearly brought the Messiah himself into the world! The tale goes that the Ba'al Shem To...
Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, grapples with these very questions. And within Kabbalah, the Zohar, a foundational text, is often seen as the most challenging – and rewarding – source....
Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, offers some pretty wild, and pretty profound, answers. One key concept to understanding this is how different partzuf (a divine configuration)im – divin...
Jewish mystical tradition, especially when we delve into the Kabbalah, can feel like navigating a labyrinth. Today, we're going to explore a particularly intricate passage from Asa...
The Jewish mystical tradition, particularly the teachings of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the Ramchal), offers a fascinating way to visualize these forces and how they relate to our...
It's not just a random allowance; it's rooted in profound Kabbalistic ideas about the divine and its relationship to the world. Let’s delve into a fascinating, albeit complex, corn...
Those unassuming black boxes and leather straps are far more than just ritual objects. According to Jewish mystical tradition, particularly as explored by the great Kabbalist Rabbi...
It's a bit dense at first glance, but stick with me. It's worth untangling. The text presents a kind of ladder, a hierarchy of control and existence. Imagine it: existence without ...
The Sefirot (סְפִירוֹת) are, in Kabbalistic thought, the ten emanations of God's divine energy. Think of them as the channels through which the Infinite makes itself known. But her...
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...
Ever wake up from a dream and think, "Wait, how did that happen?" One minute you're flying, the next you're giving a presentation naked, and then suddenly you're a talking teapot. ...
Jewish mystical tradition, specifically the ancient text Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah (Wisdom), offers a fascinating perspective on these experiences. It all boils down to the "Revelati...
According to Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah (Wisdom), various kinds of radiations emerge from Zeir Anpin. And these radiations aren't just vague, undefined energies. They manifest in spec...
And it suggests this government isn’t some monolithic entity, but a complex, multi-layered system. The Kalach Pitchei Chokhmah, a Kabbalistic text whose title means something like ...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, certainly does. It sees a whole cosmos of meaning swirling within that simple band of metal. What do we say durin...
Jewish mysticism grapples with this feeling, this sense of lack, in the concept of the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence. And one passage in the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, spe...
The Jewish mystical tradition, particularly the Zohar, sees these dreams as more than just random firings of neurons. They can be, in fact, visions – glimpses into the hidden light...
Jewish mysticism has a powerful image for that feeling: the exile of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah, often translated as the Divine Presence, is, in Kabbalistic...
The Zohar, that mystical cornerstone of Kabbalah, suggests there's a reason for that. It all begins with a seemingly simple connection: bread. Yes, that humble loaf we break and sh...
The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later part of the Zohar, one of the central works of Kabbalah, hints at something truly profound about the Torah's essence. It speaks of a ...
Rabbi Nachman began this tale with a warning: "You might think I will tell you everything and that you will be able to understand." He would not. And they would not. A king who had...
Sarah is the only woman in the entire Torah whose age at death is recorded. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev asks why, and his answer reveals something stunning about what it mean...
The Mekhilta presents a remarkable statement from the congregation of Israel, addressed directly to God, that explains exactly why they are singing at the Red Sea. "Lord of the wor...
Rabbi Elazar Hamodai looked at the twelve springs and seventy palm trees at Eilim and saw something far older than a desert oasis. He saw the blueprint of creation itself. When God...
The Mekhilta continues cataloguing everything God showed Moses from Mount Pisgah. The question this time: how do we know that God showed him even the graves of the forefathers? The...
It might sound a little unusual, but Jewish tradition is rich with symbolism, and this particular image is incredibly powerful. Imagine this: It's the sixth of Sivan, the day appoi...
It all begins with Abraham. God Himself entrusted him with a profound secret, "the secret of the mystery of the Redeemer," as Howard Schwartz puts it in Tree of Souls. A heavy burd...
The story goes that after the Temple was torn down and Jerusalem was ablaze, God, in His infinite compassion, sought to soothe the city’s pain. As Pesikta Rabbati 30:3 tells us, Go...
It's a profound idea, isn't it? That death isn't the end, but a kind of pause. A cosmic holding pattern. The Tree of Souls reminds us that God keeps the souls of the dead alive. Im...
The ancient rabbis felt that way too. And they wrestled with that feeling in their interpretations of the Psalms, particularly in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interp...
to one particularly powerful passage, a meditation on (Psalm 27:1), "The Lord is my light and my help; whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; whom should I drea...
We all do, at some point. And that feeling, that yearning, is captured beautifully in the ancient collection of teachings known as Midrash Tehillim, specifically Midrash Tehillim 3...
Specifically, we're looking at Midrash Tehillim 45. The verse we're focusing on is "Your children shall be under your fathers." Now, on the surface, that might seem straightforward...
I've got a story for you, tucked away in Midrash Tehillim 59, that’s a real head-scratcher. It involves Rabbi Akiva, his son, and a rather unusual wedding night. The tale begins wi...
That feeling isn't new. In fact, according to Midrash Tehillim 60, it goes way back. This particular midrash (a method of interpreting biblical stories beyond their literal meaning...
We often focus on the wonder of divine intervention, but sometimes the small details reveal a much deeper story. Take the plague of blood in Egypt, for example. We all know the sto...
Our sages certainly did. The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, dives deep into this very question. Specifically, it wrestles with (Psalm 78:4...
The ancient sages certainly did. a fascinating passage from Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, specifically Psalm 87, and see where i...
Jewish tradition has a powerful message about precisely that – the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. Where do we find this idea? It springs from Midrash Tehillim, a collecti...
The mystics did, and they connected it directly to the Divine. : how do we respond to new beginnings? With joy, with song, with dance! And according to the Midrash Tehillim, a coll...
It’s in those very moments that Jewish tradition whispers some of its most powerful promises. to one such whisper, found in the Pesikta DeRav Kahana, a collection of rabbinic teach...
Forget the awkward toasts and questionable dance moves. Let's talk about Adam's wedding. According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating early medieval text filled with legends ...
It’s more than just a day off. It’s a legacy. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating early medieval text, offers a beautiful parable to explain why. Imagine a person with incredibly...
Jewish tradition has a fascinating way of showing us that sometimes, just sometimes, we need a little divine… addition. Let’s turn to a text called Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a wonder...
Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and elaborations on Biblical narratives, gives us a glimpse. In Chapter 42, we find a surprising dialogue between God an...
That's the situation Moses faced in a powerful story found in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 45). The story opens with a terrifying decree: God, in his anger, sends not one, but f...
We often talk about it in broad strokes – centuries of suffering, a nation in bondage. But what if I told you that, according to one tradition, the actual period of intense enslave...
It’s a question that’s resonated throughout Jewish history, and the answer, surprisingly, is all about perspective. Our tradition teaches us that the way we count time is intimatel...
