3,287 related texts · Page 50 of 69
Thus said the Holy One Blessed be He: What reward will accrue to the sons of Benjamin, who went down first into the sea? The reposing of the Shechinah in his portion (i.e., the Tem...
The students asked their teacher: "Master, you tell us — in what merit did the tribe of Judah attain kingship over Israel?" Rabbi Tarfon gave an answer that has echoed through Jewi...
Rabbi Yehudah interprets the verse "And He removed their chariot wheels" (Exodus 14:25) as describing a scene far more spectacular than a simple mechanical failure. According to hi...
When God brought judgment upon the Egyptians at the Red Sea, the natural order itself turned upside down. The Mekhilta captures this reversal in a single, devastating image: "In th...
Pappus expounded (Song of Songs 1:9) "to a mare in the chariots of Pharaoh, etc.": Pharaoh rode on a stallion—the Holy One Blessed be He revealed Himself, as it were, on a stallion...
He devoted his life to the judges, and they were called by his name, viz. (Devarim 16:18) "Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all of your gates." Now is justice ...
The opening words of the Song of the Sea — "I shall sing to the Lord" (Exodus 15:1) — prompt the Mekhilta to reflect on what makes God worthy of song. The phrase that follows in th...
The Mekhilta concludes its extended discussion of Tyre and its ruler Malchah by citing the prophetic verdicts that sealed their fate — and then draws a sweeping theological conclus...
"a horse and its rider": The Holy One Blessed be He brings horse and rider, stands them in judgment, and says to the horse: Why did you pursue My children? The horse: An Egyptian s...
The Mekhilta presents yet another parable about human warriors, this time addressing the most dangerous flaw of all: uncontrolled rage. A warrior in a province, it says, may become...
The Mekhilta draws a precise set of parallels between the Egyptian oppression of Israel and the punishment that God inflicted at the Red Sea, showing that every detail of the destr...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael states a foundational principle of divine justice: "As one metes it out, so is it meted out to him." God's punishments are not random. They mirror the...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael presents a teaching that parallels and extends the previous one about divine wrath, now turning to the subject of divine warfare. The principle is the...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael draws attention to a single word in the Song at the Sea that transforms the entire verse from a description of the past into a prophecy of the future....
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael interprets one of the most powerful lines in the Song at the Sea: "And in the greatness of Your grandeur You break those who rise up against You" (Exo...
The Mekhilta identifies another future-tense verb in the Song at the Sea. It is not written "You have sent forth Your wrath" — as if God's anger were already spent — but "You will ...
Antoninus, the Roman emperor, once asked Rabbeinu HaKadosh — Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — for political counsel. "I wan...
The Mekhilta reads (Exodus 15:8) — "And with the breath of Your nostrils, the waters ne'ermu" — as another demonstration of God's measure-for-measure justice. The Hebrew word "ne'e...
"The foe said, etc.": How did Israel know what Pharaoh thought of them in Egypt? The Holy Spirit reposed upon them and they knew it. Pharaoh said: It really does not befit us to pu...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
Re those who said: Let us kill them and take their money—"My hand shall impoverish them." With five things (i.e., utterances) did Pharaoh stand and blaspheme in the midst of the la...
You inclined Your right hand—the earth swallowed them up." An analogy: A renegade stands and blasphemes behind the king's palace: If I find the king's son, I will seize him and sla...
The Mekhilta pinpoints the exact moment when Israel first declared (Exodus 15:11): "Who is like You among the mighty, O Lord?" It was not during the plagues. It was not at the mome...
Israel was not the only nation that broke into song at the Red Sea. According to the Mekhilta, all the peoples of the world joined in. The destruction of Pharaoh and his army sent ...
(Exodus 15:12) declares: "You inclined Your right hand — the earth swallowed them up." The Mekhilta reads this verse not primarily as a description of the Egyptians' death, but as ...
(Exodus 15:14) "Peoples heard—they quaked": When the peoples heard that Pharaoh and his hosts were lost in the sea, that the rule of Egypt had ended, and that their idolatry had be...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
When God told Moses to take the staff that had struck the Nile, the Mekhilta explains the reason: it was because of Israel's "murmurings." The people had been complaining, and now ...
Israel looked at the staff of Moses and saw only devastation. It had brought ten plagues upon the Egyptians in Egypt — blood, frogs, lice, and all the rest. Then it brought ten mor...
Rabbi Yossi ben Zimra noticed a single word in the Torah that most readers skip right past — and from it, he derived an astonishing claim about the staff of Moses. When God instruc...
Others say: "Refidim" is acronymic for "rifyon yadayim" ("weakness of hands"). Because the hands of Israel had weakened in Torah study, the foe came upon them, this transpiring onl...
The Mekhilta poses a question about the hierarchy of respect: how much honor should a person show to a friend? The answer comes from one of the most revealing moments between Moses...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai examined the verse in which God tells Moses he will not cross the Jordan, and he declared: this verse is not needed. The Torah already states the same thing...
When God took Moses to the summit of Mount Pisgah and showed him the entire Promised Land, the vision included far more than hills and valleys. The Mekhilta asks: how do we know th...
David was one of the four righteous people given a divine hint — and unlike Jacob and Moses, David recognized his and acted on it with confidence. The hint came disguised as a pair...
The Mekhilta notices something peculiar about how the Torah identifies Yithro. In the beginning of the story, Moses is the one who boasts about the relationship. When Moses returns...
R. Elazar says: after she parted from him with a ma'amar (i.e., by word of mouth). For when the L–rd said to Moses: Go and take My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt, viz...
Rebbi — Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — declared that circumcision was so great that all of Moses' accumulated merits could n...
When Pharaoh sent soldiers to hunt down Moses after the slaying of the Egyptian taskmaster, God intervened in a way no one expected. Rather than striking the pursuers dead or sendi...
When Moses sat down with his father-in-law Yithro after the exodus from Egypt, he did not simply give a dry report of events. The Mekhilta explains that Moses "related to his fathe...
R. Pappis made a statement about Yithro's blessing that was, in his reading, deeply unflattering to Israel. When Yithro arrived at the Israelite camp and heard what God had done, h...
The Torah records that the Israelites left Egypt "in the first month" (Numbers 33:3). This establishes a clear date for the Exodus — the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewi...
The Torah records the arrival at Sinai with a precise phrase (Exodus 19:1): "On this day they came to the desert of Sinai." The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael identifies the exact date ...
R. Elazar ben R. Yossi Haglili found a disturbing paradox buried in a single verse from Psalms. The verse reads (Psalms 81:8): "In distress you called and I rescued you. I answered...
The Mekhilta offers a parable that illuminates the logic behind the order of events at Sinai. A king of flesh and blood enters a new province. His servants immediately urge him: "M...
The Israelites stood at the edge of the sea, the Egyptian army bearing down behind them, and terror gripped the camp. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, freshly lib...
In Jewish tradition, Tisha B'Av, the Ninth of Av, is one of those days. It's a day of fasting and mourning, remembering immense loss and tragedy throughout our history. But where d...
(Psalm 27:13), "If I did not believe in seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living..." It’s a powerful line, isn't it? A raw admission of vulnerability, immediately ...
