1,204 related texts · Page 22 of 26
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 ...
The Mekhilta reads the phrase "You have guided them in Your strength" as a prophecy pointing forward in time. God guided Israel through the sea not because of anything they had alr...
(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...
R. Eliezer says: They journeyed by the word, for thus do we find in two or three places. What, then, is the intent of "And Moses made Israel journey?" He did so against their will,...
When the Torah says that Israel "encamped in Refidim" (Exodus 17:1), the Mekhilta hears more than a place name. The rabbis break the word apart: "rafu yadam" — "their hands weakene...
Rabbi Eliezer Hamodai taught that Moses was one of four great tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous) — righteous people — to whom God gave a subtle hint about the future. T...
Moses would not give up. Even after God had decreed that he would not lead Israel into the Promised Land, he stood his ground and kept negotiating, trying every possible angle to g...
When Moses stood on Mount Nebo and looked out over the Promised Land, God pointed to each region and revealed not just the terrain but the history that would unfold upon it. The Me...
Before Moses died, God took him to the summit of Mount Nebo and showed him the entirety of the Promised Land — every region, every valley, every corner of the territory his people ...
Yithro, the father-in-law of Moses, had seven names — and the Mekhilta explains that each name encoded a different aspect of his extraordinary character. Yether — because he "added...
When Jethro heard "that the Lord had taken Israel out of Egypt," the Mekhilta draws a remarkable conclusion: the Exodus is not just one miracle among many. It is the miracle agains...
The Torah states that Yithro "took Tzipporah, Moses' wife, after she had been sent" (Exodus 18:2). The phrase "after she had been sent" is vague — sent where? By whom? Under what c...
R. Elazar Homadai says: in a land of foreign (gods, i.e., idolatry). Moses said: Since the whole world serves idolatry, I will serve Him who spoke and brought the (whole) world int...
Jethro watched his son-in-law Moses judging the entire nation of Israel alone, from morning until evening, and he gave him a piece of advice wrapped in a parable. "Look at that bea...
The verse states (Exodus 18:22): "Every great thing shall they bring to you." But what does "great" mean in this context? The Mekhilta identifies two possible readings and uses a l...
The Torah states that the Israelites "encamped in the desert" before receiving the Torah at Sinai. The Mekhilta seizes on this geographical detail and transforms it into one of the...
Rabbi Yehudah explains a remarkable exchange between God and Moses at Sinai. God told Moses: I will speak something to you, and you will return an answer to Me, and then I will ack...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) offers a different reading of the events at Sinai, one that elevates Moses's stature even further. He argues that we would only need to "acknowledge th...
God commanded the Israelites to "wash their garments" in preparation for receiving the Torah at Sinai (Exodus 19:10). The Mekhilta asks a follow-up question that the Torah itself d...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asks a deceptively simple question: why were the Ten Commandments not placed at the very beginning of the Torah? If they are the foundation of the cov...
Variantly: "I am the L–rd your G–d": When the Holy One Blessed be He stood and said "I am the L–rd your G–d," the mountains shook and the hills quivered, and Tavor came from Be'er ...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael pauses on a single phrase from the Ten Commandments to ask a question about dignity. When God declared "who took you out from the land of Egypt," what...
Rabbi Chanina ben Antignos offered one of the sharpest anti-idolatry arguments in the entire Mekhilta, and he did it with a single devastating observation about language. The Torah...
A certain philosopher asked R. Gamliel: It is written in your Torah "for the L–rd your G–d is a wrathful G–d." Now is there power in idolatry to arouse wrath (in G–d)? One here is ...
(Exodus 20:19) records God telling Moses: "Thus shall you say to the children of Israel." The Mekhilta seizes on the word "thus" — in Hebrew, "koh" — and derives a surprising rule:...
But perhaps the first is an exhortation against stealing money, and the second an exhortation against stealing souls? Would you say that? Three mitzvot (commandments)h are mentione...
Rabbi Akiva found a striking legal principle hidden inside a single verse about a goring ox. The Torah states that when an ox kills a person after its owner was warned, "the ox sha...
How many judges does it take to decide a monetary dispute in Jewish law? The Mekhilta traces the answer to a single passage in (Exodus 22:7-8), where the word "elohim" — meaning ju...
The Torah was given with its signs — its built-in warnings against idolatry. The Mekhilta explains why this matters. Israel might have reasoned as follows: we are commanded against...
The Mekhilta confronts one of the hardest questions in any legal system: what happens when you know the defendant is guilty — not of this particular charge, but in general? The ver...
"It is a sign forever" — the Mekhilta derives from this phrase that the Sabbath will never be lost from Israel. No matter what happens — exile, persecution, assimilation pressures ...
The air crackles with anticipation, with divine energy. And then, it begins. According to the Mateh Moshe, during the revelation of the Torah, God didn't just speak. He didn't just...
Imagine, just for a moment, if you had something that could smooth out those bumps, flatten those peaks, and make the journey a little easier. Well, according to Jewish tradition, ...
It's more than just geography; it's about a direct connection to the Divine. : a place so sacred, it’s said to be constantly under God’s watchful eye. (Deuteronomy 11:12) tells us ...
It sounds like something out of a fantastical story, but according to tradition, there was a time when the Hebrew alphabet itself was called upon to do just that. Imagine this: God...
The opening of Psalm 1, "Blessed is the man," seems simple enough, but according to Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Psalms, it's packed wi...
Rabbi Levi suggests a difference in timing. When the Holy One, blessed be He, judges the nations of the world, it happens at night, a time when they are asleep, supposedly free fro...
Midrash Tehillim, a beautiful collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, offers us some clues, specifically in Midrash Tehillim 49. It begins with the verse, "Hear this, ...
How does God really reward and punish us? Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Psalms, grapples with this very question. It dives into (Psalm 6...
Psalm 82 opens with a powerful image: "A Psalm of Asaph. God stands in the congregation of God; He judges among the gods." It's a verse that speaks volumes about justice, responsib...
Jewish tradition certainly does. It speaks of hidden wisdom, divine secrets revealed to those who seek them. But with revelation comes responsibility, and with secrets, sometimes, ...
That feeling, that connection, is something Jewish tradition has explored for centuries. And one beautiful place where we find this idea expressed is in Midrash Tehillim, a collect...
He taught that if the Israelites—and by extension, maybe even us—were to observe just one Shabbat (the Sabbath), that day of rest, according to all its intricate laws, redemption w...
That feeling of a long, hard journey – that's exactly what's captured in the Psalm of Ascents. But it's not just about the struggle; it's about the song that rises with each step. ...
The answer, according to ancient wisdom, lies in the sound of the shofar, the ram's horn. Yehudah bar Nachman, quoting Reish Lakish, offers a powerful image based on (Psalm 47:6), ...
We often picture him releasing the dove, seeing the rainbow, and then… silence. But life, as it always does, went on. And with life, came choices, mistakes, and some pretty strange...
It's a collection of stories and interpretations of the Torah, attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a prominent sage from the first century. It's not quite Midrash (rabbinic i...
