23 texts in Kabbalah & Mysticism
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, in his Kedushat Levi commentary on the opening verse of the Torah, makes a claim that sounds simple but overturns how most people think about cre...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, commenting on the Torah portion of Noach (Genesis 6:9), distinguishes between two types of righteous people, and the difference has cosmic conseq...
When God told Abraham, "Go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), He was deliberately vague. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this vagueness as a divine instructi...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Vayera (Genesis 18:1) with a puzzle: the Torah says "God appeared to him," using only the pronoun "him" instead of...
Sarah is the only woman in the entire Torah whose age at death is recorded. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev asks why, and his answer reveals something stunning about what it mean...
"These are the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham; Abraham begot Isaac" (Genesis 25:19). The repetition seems redundant. If Isaac is the son of Abraham, we know Abraham begot...
"Jacob left Beer Sheva" (Genesis 28:10). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev connects this verse to a surprising topic: Chanukah. The word Chanukah (חנוכה) derives from chinukh (חנוך...
"I have remained a stranger at Laban's" (Genesis 32:5). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reports his father's brilliant reading of Jacob's message to Esau. The Hebrew word garti (...
"Jacob settled in the land where his father sojourned" (Genesis 37:1). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on the Joseph story by explaining why Jacob lived in a...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev addresses a question that Nachmanides raised about Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream: if Joseph predicted seven years of famine but the f...
The confrontation between Judah and Joseph in Egypt was not simply a family dispute. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads it as a cosmic collision between two forms of kingship....
"He blessed them on that day, saying: may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh" (Genesis 48:20). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev uses Jacob's blessing to explain a peculiar tea...
"And these are the names of the children of Israel" (Exodus 1:1). The Torah lists the twelve tribes again, even though they were already named in Genesis. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Be...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Va'era with a question about the nature of prophecy. God tells Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jac...
Why does God sometimes tell Moses to "go to Pharaoh" (lekh el Par'oh) and other times to "come to Pharaoh" (bo el Par'oh)? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev discovers two entirely ...
When the sea split, the angels fell behind. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads the verse, "The angel of God who had been traveling in front of the Israelite camp moved to thei...
"Yitro, the priest of Midian, heard all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel" (Exodus 18:1). What exactly did Yitro hear? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says he hea...
"You will prostrate yourselves from a distance" (Exodus 24:1). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this verse not as a physical instruction about how far to stand from Mount Si...
"They shall take for Me a contribution" (Exodus 25:2). The first commandment God gave after the revelation at Sinai was to build Him a home. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev finds...
Moses' name does not appear in Parshat Tetzaveh. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev uses this conspicuous absence to explore a question about wisdom, unity, and the priestly garment...
"When you take a census of the Children of Israel, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for his soul" (Exodus 30:12). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this as God offering the J...
"These are the things that the Lord commanded to be done. For six days work shall be performed, but the seventh day shall be holy for you" (Exodus 35:1-2). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of B...
Parashat Pekudei opens with an accounting of the Tabernacle's materials (Exodus 38:21), but the Kedushat Levi (Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev) sees something far deeper than a l...
