3,287 related texts · Page 63 of 69
A Kuthean disputed with R. Meir as to the righteousness of Jacob who only separated Levi tithed as one of the io tribes, instead of separating one more for the remaining two. For h...
R. Eliezer, charged with heresy, was saved from punishment by saying, “The judge knows the truth" which the Hegemon interpreted as a tribute to his justice. Tlje reason why he got ...
A non-Jew once asked Rabban Gamliel a question that seemed simple but concealed a philosophical trap. "Your God," he said, "is supposedly the master of the entire universe. He crea...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Yose was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem — one of the three annual journeys that every Jewish man was commanded to undertake. Along the way, he passed through ...
Rabbi Yohanan ben Matya instructed his son to hire Jewish laborers and feed them properly. The son went out, hired the workers, and came back with a question that stopped his fathe...
Simeon ben Rabbi forgot to invite Bar Kappara to dinner. The latter wrote on the door: ‘‘After joy death.” Invited afterwards to another dinner, he kept the guests so amused by his...
IV. 4. A man called Joseph Mokir Shabba (“honourer of the Sabbath") lived next to a rich Parsee. The latter was told that all his property would go to Joseph. He, therefore, sold a...
Tamptation of Matia b. Heresh. J. Shabbat (the Sabbath), ch. 3. cf. Story of R. Meir in Kiddush (the sanctification blessing over wine)in. Midr. Abhir in Yalk. § 161. Midr. Decal. ...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Jose was making his way to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage when a Samaritan stopped him on the road. The Samaritans — who lived on and around Mount Gerizim and claimed ...
Rabbi Johanan ben Matya gave his son a simple instruction: go and hire laborers, and make sure to feed them properly. The son went out, found workers, and promised them a meal. But...
Seven Good Years when Young. Midr. Zutta (Ruth) ed. Buber, p. 55. Nissim, f. 36b. Yalk. II, § 607. Rappaport, R. Nissim. Husin, Maase Nissim, No. 33. Yalk. Sip. Ill, pp. 107, no. c...
Man Who Would Not Swear. Ben Atar, No. 5, f. 23 a. Midr. Decalogue, III, 2. Nissim, Reprinted Sef. Hayashar, Livorno 1862, f. I39bf. Yalk. Exod. II, p. 138. Farhi, O. P. I, f. 26 a...
Bird’s Three Advices. Tendlau, Fellmeier, No. 21. Grunbaum, Jud. Dtsch. Chrest. p. 249. Ginzburg, Hagoren, 1923, p. 42. Benfey,Pantschat.I,38o. Barlaam u. Josaphat, v. Wiener, Jahr...
Israel in exile speaks like a child who has finally stopped lying. "Master of the Universe, at first I said 'I have not sinned,' and You brought suffering upon me. Now I say: I hav...
Each prophet saw God differently. Amos saw Him standing — "I saw the Lord standing beside the altar" (Amos 9:1). Isaiah saw Him sitting — "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high ...
"Behold, God will not cast away the perfect, neither will He uphold the evildoers" (Job 8:20). God visited Sarah and she conceived (Genesis 21:1) — after decades of barrenness, aft...
"These are the generations of Isaac, son of Abraham; Abraham begot Isaac" (Genesis 25:19). The verse says it twice, and the rabbis asked why. Their answer: to show that the gift gi...
Rachel had watched her sister enter the wedding canopy and had not envied her — not then. But when the children came, one after another from Leah's womb, Rachel's patience broke. "...
"And it came to pass at that time that Judah went down" (Genesis 38:1). The rabbis heard in "went down" more than geography. Judah left his brothers, married a Canaanite woman, and...
Take lentils, for example. Humble, unassuming… yet, in Jewish tradition, they're deeply tied to mourning and sorrow. Why lentils? The tradition tells us that when Cain killed Abel,...
That feeling, that raw, unfair sting, is at the heart of the story of Jacob and Esau, and the stolen blessing. The scene is set: Isaac, now old and with failing eyesight, calls for...
Maybe you drove past a friend's house without stopping, or forgot to say thank you to someone who deserved it. Imagine that feeling, amplified on a biblical scale. The Torah tells ...
You know the one – stretching all the way from earth to heaven, angels going up and down, up and down. He jolted awake and said, "In truth, the Glory of the Shekhinah (the Divine P...
Jewish tradition has a way of blowing your mind with concepts like that – especially when we delve into stories like the Exodus and the Binding of Isaac. Imagine this: the Israelit...
That raw, visceral feeling is at the heart of a powerful story about Moses and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Imagine Moses, our leader, the one who brought us out of ...
But what if the Messianic role is actually a team effort? What if, as this radical idea from Deuteronomy Rabbah (3:17) suggests, the Messiah is actually two figures, coming togethe...
The Israelites knew that feeling intimately. Our story begins in just such a place: "The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, on the first of the...
It's not just random geography. It's a lesson in humility and the power of inner space. The Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, opens with the famous line: "The Lord spoke to Mose...
Our tradition teaches us that the world itself was once like that, a desolate and empty space, until something truly remarkable happened. Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic ...
The book of Numbers, in the Torah, gives us a fascinating glimpse when it describes how the Israelites camped in the wilderness. But it's not just a dry description; it’s a symboli...
The Book of Numbers (Bamidbar) is where we find this story. God tells Moses, "You shall take the Levites for Me, I am the Lord, in place of every firstborn among the children of Is...
Why priests were priests, Levites were Levites, and the firstborn... well, what was the deal with the firstborn? Our story begins in Bamidbar Rabbah 6, a section of the great Midra...
It's almost like a cosmic nudge, inviting us to dig a little deeper. Take, for example, the juxtaposition of the laws concerning lepers right before the section detailing the dutie...
Today, we're diving into a fascinating story from Bamidbar Rabbah 10, a section of the larger Midrash Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic homilies and interpretations of the Torah. It...
Take the case of the nazir, or Nazirite, described in the Book of Numbers. We're talking about someone who takes a special vow to abstain from wine, avoid contact with the dead, an...
Jewish tradition grapples with this apparent contradiction all the time. Take the famous Priestly Blessing from (Numbers 6:26): "May the Lord show favor to you, and grant you peace...
It's all about how we access, understand, and apply the teachings of Torah. The passage opens with a verse from Ecclesiastes (12:11): “The words of the wise are like goads, and lik...
to a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 14, a Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpretation, on the Book of Numbers, that explores this very tension. The pass...
The Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, picks up the story after the tumultuous events at Sinai. In Bamidbar Rabbah 15, a Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpreti...
Like checking the price tag after you’ve already won the lottery. Well, according to Bamidbar Rabbah 16, part of the larger collection of Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)...
We all know the story of the spies. The Israelites, poised to enter the Promised Land, get cold feet. "Let's send some scouts ahead," they suggest to Moses. But what was really goi...
It all starts with a seemingly simple verse: “Amalek dwells in the region of the south” (Numbers 13:29). But the rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) ask a poin...
We find ourselves in a similar place in Bamidbar Rabbah 16, grappling with the aftermath of the Israelites' lack of faith and their subsequent punishment of wandering the desert fo...
That feeling resonates deeply in a powerful passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 16. It explores the fraught relationship between God and the Israelites, focusing on their repeated rejecti...
In the book of Numbers, we find Moses doing just that, wrestling with God over the fate of the Israelites. It’s a moment of incredible intensity, revealing a deep and complex relat...
In this week's portion, we encounter the rebellion of Koraḥ, a story that's not just about one disgruntled guy, but about the very foundations of leadership and faith. "Koraḥ assem...
The story of Koraḥ's challenge to Moses' leadership is a powerful one, filled with jealousy, ambition, and a profound questioning of divine authority. We find a particularly insigh...
This week, we're diving into a story from Bamidbar Rabbah – a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers – that explores just that feeling. It centers on Moses, and a ...
