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Take the verse from Ecclesiastes (10:8): “One who digs a pit will fall into it; and one who breaches a fence, a serpent will bite him.” It's a powerful image. But what does it real...
Ancient Jewish wisdom grappled with these questions too. Take this passage from Kohelet Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Ecclesiastes. It starts with...
The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet, as it’s known in Hebrew, ends with this rather stark line: "For every action God will bring to judgment, for every unknown, whether good or ev...
The Torah tells us that Pharaoh, increasingly paranoid about the growing Israelite population, ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all newborn baby boys (Exodus 1:16). But the midw...
The Torah tells us, "The woman conceived and bore a son; she saw that he was good and she hid him for three months" (Exodus 2:2). But what lies beneath that simple verse? The ancie...
Like a well, for instance. It's more than just a source of water; it’s often a meeting place, a place of destiny. Our sages point this out in Shemot Rabbah, noting how the well is ...
But where is God, exactly? Is He up in the heavens, completely removed from our earthly struggles? Or is He still somehow… here? The book of Shemot Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic...
It might seem like just a simple Hebrew word meaning "was," but in the world of Jewish thought, it can unlock hidden meanings, destinies, and connections. Shemot Rabbah, a collecti...
Turns out, Moses did. And, according to the Shemot Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Exodus, it didn't go unnoticed. The story begins, as we k...
