3,287 related texts · Page 40 of 69
Jewish mysticism speaks of gates like these – spiritual barriers that seem impenetrable. But what if the key wasn't strength or knowledge, but something far more vulnerable? The Ti...
In the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a core text of Kabbalah, we find a fascinating, albeit cryptic, passage that delves into the nature of good, evil, and the power of prayer...
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...
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...
Some say it's in ancient texts, hidden in plain sight for those with eyes to see. And of all the ancient texts, one stands out for its sheer density, its mind-bending complexity, a...
And the answer? Well, it's a bit…uncomfortable. The Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a later, and in some ways wilder, expansion on the core Zohar, tackles this very question hea...
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...
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 ...
(Exodus 12:1) "in the land of Egypt":(He spoke to them) outside the city. But perhaps in the city itself? (This cannot be, for it is written (Exodus 9:29) "When I leave the city" (...
On the night of the Exodus, God did not just strike the firstborn of Egypt. He also executed judgment on the gods of Egypt. And according to the Mekhilta, those judgments were not ...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, probes the geographic scope of the tenth plague with meticulous care. The verse states: "And the Lord smote every firstborn in the la...
"and they emptied out Egypt": We are hereby apprised that their idols melted and returned to their former state, (so that they were now permitted to take them.) And whence is it de...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, takes up a question about the Israelites' first stop after leaving Egypt: a place called Succoth. "And they traveled from Rameses to ...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) noticed the same numerical tension between two biblical verses about the duration of Israel's time in Egypt. One says "they shall serve them and they s...
Rabbi Nathan noticed something striking in the Torah's language about the Exodus. The text uses two verbs — "who brought up" and "who brought" — when describing God's act of taking...
Rabbi Nathan offered a striking interpretation of the word bakosharoth from (Psalms 68:7), "He takes out the bound bakosharoth." Rather than reading it as a single word, he split i...
"This day you go out in the month of Aviv" (Exodus 13:3) — a verse that seems to state the obvious. Of course Israel left in the month of Aviv (spring). The Torah already told us t...
(Exodus 13:17) "And it was, when G–d sent ("shalach") the people": "sending" in all places is accompaniment, viz. (Genesis 18:16) "And Abraham went with them to send them," (Ibid. ...
(Exodus 14:3) "And Pharaoh will say about the children of Israel: They are nevuchim in the land": "nevuchim" is "confounded," as in (Joel 1:18) "How the beasts groan! The herds of ...
(Exodus 14:4) "And I shall strengthen Pharaoh's heart": for it was divided, whether to pursue or not to pursue. "and I will be honored through (the downfall of) Pharaoh and all of ...
In the past, Pharaoh's servants said to him (Exodus 10:7) "How long will this one be a stumbling block to us?" and now (Ibid. 14:5) "What is this that we did in sending Israel away...
Four "harnessed" with joy: Abraham—(Genesis 22:3) "And Abraham rose early in the morning (for the binding of Isaac), and he saddled his ass." Now did he not have many servants?—(He...
When the Israelites saw the Egyptian army bearing down on them and the Red Sea blocking their escape, the Torah says they "were exceedingly afraid." But what did they do with that ...
The Mekhilta adds a further proof that the Hebrew root "pegiyah" means prayer, citing the prophet Jeremiah: "Let them now pray (yifgu na) to the Lord of hosts, that the vessels whi...
The Mekhilta draws yet another proof of prayer's supreme power from Jacob's blessing over the tribe of Judah. The Torah declares: "A lion's whelp is Judah" (Genesis 49:9). On the s...
What is written of Moses? (Numbers 20:14-16) "And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom … And our fathers went down to Egypt … and He hearkened to our voice." He (t...
The Mekhilta identifies three separate places in the Torah where God explicitly commanded Israel never to return to Egypt. Three warnings — not one, not two, but three — each in a ...
As the walls of water began crashing down upon the Egyptian army, a debate erupted among the soldiers trapped in the seabed. The Torah records that "Egypt said: I shall flee from b...
And (this obtains) not with Egypt alone, but with all who afflict Israel throughout the generations. As it is written (Psalms 78:66) "And He beat back His foes. Eternal disgrace di...
(Exodus 14:30) "And Israel saw Egypt dead on the shore of the sea": For four reasons: That they not say: Just as we came up on this side, so they came up on another side (and will ...
"The foe (Pharaoh) said": And he did not know what he was saying, viz. (Mishlei 16:1) "To a man are the musings of his heart, but to the L–rd is the meaning of the tongue." (He sai...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael preserves a dramatic speech attributed to God, addressed to the Egyptians at the moment of the Red Sea's destruction. The voice is that of a king — an...
"All of the illness which I placed in Egypt I will not place upon you" — God promised the Israelites immunity from the plagues that devastated their former oppressors. But then the...
Rabbi Yitzchak posed a deceptively simple question about one of the most famous promises in the Torah. In (Exodus 15:26), God tells the Israelites that if they follow His commandme...
The Mekhilta decodes every word of Moses' declaration before the battle with Amalek. "The top of the hill" is not just a geographic feature — it is a spiritual map. "Top" represent...
Before God ever asked Israel to accept His kingship, He proved Himself through action. The Mekhilta lays out the sequence with deliberate precision, and the order matters. First, G...
"I am the L–rd your G–d who took you out of the land of Egypt." What is the intent of this? Because He appeared at the Red Sea as a hero waging war, viz. (Exodus 15:3) "The L–rd is...
The Mekhilta unpacks a subtle but powerful argument that God makes to Israel. The verse reads: "As the deeds of the land of Egypt in which you dwelt you shall not do" (Leviticus 18...
The Torah actually grapples with this very question, and the answer, as you might expect, is layered and fascinating. : Moses, standing before the burning bush, is tasked with lead...
There's a story, a rather incredible one, about a rabbi who supposedly did just that. It all revolves around Rabbi Judah Loew, also known as the Maharal of Prague. This was a truly...
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...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interpretations of the Psalms, offers a pretty powerful image to explain it. It starts with the question: "Why did the nations rage?" Th...
Our exploration begins with a verse from the Song of Songs (7:3): "Your navel is like a round goblet... Your belly is a heap of wheat." The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentar...
Our sages explored this very feeling, using the image of the harvest and the vintage to understand the delicate timing of redemption. It's all there in Midrash Tehillim, a collecti...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers a fascinating glimpse into this divine-human "battle" during the Exodus. It's not just abou...
Midrash Tehillim, a collection of homiletic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers some fascinating perspectives on this very question, particularly in its treatment of Psal...
That’s the feeling at the heart of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” But there’s so much more to this familiar verse than meets the eye. Midrash Tehillim, a co...
Where did they get clothes? How did they stay clean? It's the kind of thing that keeps rabbis up at night, apparently. And it leads us to some pretty amazing stories in the Midrash...
