1,822 related texts · Page 5 of 38
The standard Bible tells you Rachel stole her father's household gods when Jacob fled Laban's house. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation from roughly the 1st-2nd ce...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 22) drops a bombshell in its opening verses that the Torah never states directly. Balak sent messengers not just to some foreign sorcerer, but to "...
When Jacob fled from his brother Esau and set out on the long road to Haran, he stopped at a place called Bethel and made a vow to God. "If God will be with me and guard me on this...
"Many peoples have afflicted me from my youth" (Psalm 129:1). The Assembly of Israel — the collective voice of the nation — says this as a Song of Ascents, sung while ascending to ...
The story begins with Rebecca, who, upon meeting Eliezer at the well, "ran and told her mother’s household all about these matters" (Genesis 24:28). Now, Rabbi Yoḥanan makes an int...
Specifically, Bereshit Rabbah 70 wrestles with a tricky part of Jacob's story. After his dream of the ladder, Jacob makes a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me i...
Even a casual "How's it going?" can hold a world of unspoken understanding. Let's peek into Bereshit Rabbah, specifically section 70, for a gem on just this. The scene: Jacob, our ...
We’re talking about Leah, wife of Jacob. You remember Leah: first wife, given in a switcheroo by her father Laban! By this point, she’s already given Jacob a whole bunch of sons. B...
That’s the kind of feeling we get when we delve into Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Genesis. Specifically, let’s look at verse 30:...
It’s a pretty universal experience, and it seems even Jacob, one of our patriarchs, felt it too. Our story begins with Jacob's reunion with his brother, Esau, after many years of s...
Take the reunion of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 33. We read how Jacob arranged his family as he approached his brother, placing the maidservants and their children first, Leah and he...
Specifically, (Song of Songs 1:17): "The beams of our houses are cedars, and our panels are cypresses." Seems simple enough. But like so much in Jewish tradition, there's a deeper ...
"And the El Shaddai grant you mercy" (Genesis 43:14). Jacob is sending Benjamin to Egypt — his youngest, his only remaining connection to Rachel, the son he can least afford to los...
Naphtali, eighth son of Jacob, born of Bilhah, was dying in his hundred and thirtieth year. His sons gathered on the first day of the seventh month. He was still in good health. He...
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught that there is a reason why Torah scholars so often oppose the true tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous). It is not a flaw in the system. I...
It seems straightforward enough, counting seven weeks from Passover until we receive the Torah. But as always with Jewish tradition, there's so much more shimmering beneath the sur...
We often hear about the big names – Abraham, Moses, David. But what about the seemingly quieter figures, the ones whose stories whisper rather than shout? Today, let’s delve into t...
He's got his family, his flocks, and a whole lot of baggage—emotional and otherwise. He's facing the very real possibility of a showdown with his estranged brother, Esau, and the c...
That’s the feeling that leaps off the page of this passage from Mitpachat Sefarim (מטפחת ספרים), a fascinating and relatively obscure work. The title itself, "Scroll Covering," hin...
But Jewish tradition speaks of just such a place: the city of Luz. Imagine a city whose histories are meticulously kept, filled with all the details of life and learning, spanning ...
The first-fruits ceremony in (Deuteronomy 26) is beautiful in the Torah. Targum Jonathan makes it lavish. Where the Hebrew says simply to bring produce in a basket, the Targum adds...
The ancient rabbis pondered this very feeling when they explored the verse, "And [Abraham] went to Ḥaran" (Genesis 11:31). What does it really mean to go somewhere? Bereshit Rabbah...
Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of Rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Ecclesiastes, explores this very human experience with the verse, "There is an evil that I have seen under t...
And trust me, this is a tale you won't soon forget. According to the Legends of the Jews, Isaac, son of Abraham, was a chip off the old block. He mirrored his father in every way—b...
Remember the story? Jacob, with a little help from his mother, tricked his aging, blind father Isaac into giving him the blessing meant for Esau, the elder twin. Esau was furious, ...
In the house of Jacob, that dance of happiness and grief played out on a grand scale. Let's rewind. Remember Deborah, Rebekah's nurse? She wasn't just a caregiver; she was family. ...
What would you say? Would you offer blessings, warnings, or maybe even a bit of both? That's what happened with Jacob, also known as Israel, as he lay dying in Egypt, surrounded by...
In the Torah, names aren't just labels; they're prophecies, echoes of the past, and whispers of the future. Take Leah, for instance, one of Jacob’s wives. Her story, as told in Leg...
The text tells us that Jacob was grievously ill, and it’s no wonder. Think about all he’d been through! Remember his years of relentless toil while working for Laban? Day and night...
It's the twenty-first day of the second month, in the second year of a devastating seven-year famine. Jacob, weary but resolute, makes his way down to Egypt. Famine had gripped the...
That's the weight Jacob carried, a weight he shares with his sons in a passage from Legends of the Jews (Ginzberg). Jacob, nearing the end of his life, recounts a powerful vision t...
According to the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Moses chose his servant Joshua to lead the charge. Why? Because Moses knew that only a descendant of Rachel...
In the Book of Genesis, Jacob, nearing the end of his life, bestows blessings upon his sons, the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel. When he blesses Dan, he likens him to Juda...
"I have remained a stranger at Laban's" (Genesis 32:5). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reports his father's brilliant reading of Jacob's message to Esau. The Hebrew word garti (...
Did you know that some traditions claim Jacob, father of the twelve tribes of Israel, never actually died? It sounds impossible, doesn't it? He was embalmed, buried… but the story ...
Our ancestor Jacob had that experience, big time, at the ford of the Jabbok (יַבֹּק), a river mentioned in Genesis. The story, as told in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 37), a fas...
The story of Jacob wrestling with an angel, found in Genesis 32, is one of the most enigmatic and powerful scenes in the Torah. But what was really going on that night by the river...
Jewish mysticism, particularly Kabbalah, grapples with this kind of complexity all the time. Let's talk about Leah and Rachel, two of the matriarchs, wives of Jacob, and how Kabbal...
Medieval Jewish folk belief wove a dense web of connections between the natural world and the supernatural. Certain plants healed. Certain foods enhanced memory or destroyed it. Th...
Genesis 35 records some of the most consequential events in Jacob's life—Rachel's death, the birth of Benjamin, and Jacob's return to his father Isaac. The Targum Jonathan, the anc...
The principle that a dream follows its interpretation is not an abstraction. The Talmud in Berakhot 55b demonstrates it through the life of Joseph—and through a hard rule about tim...
It all starts simply enough: "Reuben went during the days of wheat harvest, found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to Leah, his mother. Rachel said to Leah: Please give me ...
But imagine the weight of a vow to the Almighty, left unfulfilled. According to Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, Jacob found himself in just such a predicament. He'd mad...
"And Sarah's lifetime was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years" (Genesis 23:1). Rashi offers his famous comment: at one hundred she was like twenty (free from sin), a...
Jewish tradition certainly thinks so. And there’s a powerful story that illustrates just how deeply connected we are across generations, a story about the pleading of the fathers a...
We often think about the legal agreements, the ketubah, and the ceremony itself. But what about the party? The celebration? The text we're looking at is from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer...
[1] "And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, etc." (Exodus 20:1-2) Blessed is the Place, blessed is He, who chose Israel from all His handiwork and acquired ...
Take the story of Jacob and Esau, a tale filled with sibling rivalry, deception, and a mother's desperate attempt to protect her son. When Rebecca realizes the danger Jacob is in a...
