3,287 related texts · Page 51 of 69
King David certainly did. In Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms, we find David crying out, "I call to You, O Lord, my rock, do not be deaf t...
We know Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, received the Torah, and guided them through the wilderness. But did you know some traditions suggest he also served as High Priest? I...
God is calling to Moses from the burning bush. A pretty dramatic way to get someone's attention. And what's the message? "Go to Pharaoh and bring my people out of Egypt!" (Exodus 3...
Let’s talk about Moses. We all know Moses. The guy who led the Israelites out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, received the Torah on Mount Sinai. A towering figure of faith and leader...
Rabbi Abbahu, a sage from the Amoraic period, tells us to look at the story of King David to understand this power. Now, you probably know the story of David. Shepherd boy, slayer ...
That's kind of what went down between Moses and the Egyptian magicians, according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating early medieval text that delves into biblical narratives....
It's more than just checking the calendar. According to ancient tradition, there was a time when the connection between the earthly and heavenly realms was so clear, so palpable, t...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a treasure trove of rabbinic commentary and aggadic stories on the Tanakh, offers us a fascinating glimpse, focusing on a very specific phrase. It all revolves ...
The Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic teachings, hints at just such an idea with a fascinating take on a seemingly ordinary object: a st...
Jewish tradition certainly grapples with this idea, especially when considering the long and often painful history of exile. In the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commen...
That feeling of déjà vu, that unsettling sense that we've been here before… it's a powerful one, and it echoes through Jewish history, particularly when we talk about exile. Sifrei...
But who exactly is being told to do this counting? Is it the beth-din, the Jewish court, maybe acting on behalf of the community? That's where the Sifrei Devarim, a collection of e...
R. JOSE SAID: HE WHO HONOURS THE TORAH IS HIMSELF HONOURED BY MANKIND, as it is stated, For them that honour Me I will honour, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.11...
The opening verse of Deuteronomy lists a string of place names — "in the wilderness, in the Arabah, over against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zah...
Abraham tells a foreign king that Sarah is his sister. Again. He already pulled this move with Pharaoh in Egypt (Genesis 12:13). Now in Gerar, he does it a second time—and the Targ...
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...
Exodus chapter 6 is mostly genealogy—the kind of passage readers skim. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a minefield of hidden revelations. The chapter opens with God revealing the...
When the Hebrew Bible says Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and it became a serpent (Exodus 7:10), the Targum Jonathan makes a far more terrifying claim. The rod did not b...
The revelation at Sinai is awe-inspiring in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan on (Exodus 19) makes it terrifying. It adds details about God physically uprooting the mountain, I...
The Hebrew Bible says the Israelites camped by their tribal standards (Numbers 2:2). It never describes what was on them. The Targum Jonathan fills that silence with a riot of colo...
Numbers 7 is the longest chapter in the Torah, listing identical offerings from twelve tribal princes across twelve days. It is famously repetitive. The Targum Jonathan rescues it ...
Korah did not just challenge Moses. According to the Targum Jonathan, he manufactured a theological argument using the very fabric of his clothing, hid treasure he had looted from ...
The Blessing of Moses in (Deuteronomy 33) gets the full Targum treatment—every tribe's destiny expanded, every blessing loaded with specifics the Torah never mentions. It opens wit...
Eli led Israel for forty years, and the day Eli died, he forsook his tabernacle, as it is said, “He rejected the tent of Joseph” (Psalm 78:67), and “He gave His strength into capti...
“And in the first year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, at the completion of the word of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord aroused… So said Cyrus, the king of Persia… Who ...
"So the Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel with back breaking labor [b'farech]" (Ex. 1:13). R. Elazar says, "B'pe rach—with a soft mouth." R. Shmuel says, "B'frichah—With ri...
Another explanation: And you will quickly perish (Deuteronomy 11:17)—exile after exile. And thus do you find with the ten tribes, exile after exile. And thus do you find with the t...
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...
When Moses ascended to heaven to receive the Torah, the angels were furious. According to Shabbat 88b, they confronted God directly: "What is a human being doing among us?" God tol...
The Hebrew Bible says God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" and he pursued the Israelites (Exodus 14:8). Targum Onkelos translates this without softening or explaining. The hardening stan...
“And of Benjamin he said, The Lord's beloved…” (Devarim 33:12) One verse says “As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out…” (...
Rabbi Judah took upon himself the education of the daughter of Rabbi Tarfon, raising her in Torah and wisdom. It was an act of extraordinary devotion — accepting responsibility for...
VII. 2. R. Meir on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem used to lodge with Judah the butcher, whose wife looked after him. She died and Judah married a second time and entreated by him Meir...
The sages taught that ten kings have ruled — or will rule — over the entire world. The list reads like a history of power itself, stretching from the beginning of time to its end. ...
Rabbi Judah HaNasi and his household were known for their dignified appearance, but the principle of "shining through cleanliness" extended throughout the rabbinic world. The Talmu...
Korah's riches were legendary — and his fall was proportional to his wealth. The Talmud (Pesahim 119a, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:1) and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer describe a fortun...
The evil eye is a supposed power of bewitching or harming by spiteful looks, attributed to certain persons as a natural endowment. This belief was widespread among ancient civiliza...
We tend to picture Him as all-powerful, which He is, but the ancient texts sometimes paint a more… visceral picture. A picture of YAHWEH, the Warrior God. Think about the Exodus st...
We usually think of it as a given, part of the grand, sweeping narrative of the Exodus. But what if the waters had their own say? According to some fascinating midrash (rabbinic in...
The Rabbis, masters of drash (interpretive storytelling), loved to find echoes and allusions throughout the Torah. They saw connections where we might only see separate stories. An...
The Book of Exodus, or Shemot in Hebrew, is the ultimate story of resilience. It begins not with triumph, but with oppression. And even in the darkest moments, we find glimmers of ...
The Torah tells us, "His sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter: ‘Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’" (Exodus 2:7). But why specifically ...
That feeling... well, it's not new. It echoes all the way back to ancient Egypt, to the very dawn of the Israelite nation. We find ourselves in the book of Exodus, Shemot in Hebrew...
The ancient Rabbis certainly thought about that feeling, and they found it in a surprising place: the showdown between Moses and Pharaoh's magicians. The verse in (Exodus 7:12) tel...
(Besides driving us crazy, of course!) Well, Jewish tradition has a fascinating answer, one that goes all the way back to the plagues in Egypt. The Book of Exodus recounts God's co...
a passage from Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a commentary on the Song of Songs, that grapples with just that. It all starts with a verse: "By the fragrance of your good oils, your name is ...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. And they found ways to see even the most epic struggles, like the Exodus from Egypt, through a deeply human lens. They weren't just interested in ...
Jewish tradition grapples with it too, and beautifully so. In the Shir HaShirim Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Song of Songs, we find a fascinating explora...
