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The Torah's prohibition against possessing chametz during Passover seems absolute. But the rabbis of the Mekhilta identified important exceptions based on two principles: domain an...
The Torah prohibits chametz in two locations during Passover: in your houses and in your boundaries. But a careful reader might wonder whether these two prohibitions share the same...
(Exodus 13:8) commands, "And you shall tell your son on that day." But when exactly is "that day"? The verse sits within a passage about the month of Nisan, so one might think the ...
Rabbi Eliezer agreed that the tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) belong on the upper arm rather than the palm, but he arrived at the conclusion through entirely dif...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching by Rabbi Yitzchak about the precise placement of tefillin, the leather boxes containing Torah passages that Jewish men bind to thei...
The verse (Exodus 13:9) states, "And it shall be to you as a sign upon your hand and as a memorial between your eyes." The Mekhilta derived from the sequence of this verse a precis...
What happens when a sheep that has never given birth delivers twin males at the exact same moment? Rabbi Yossi HaGlili tackled this unusual scenario head-on, and his ruling surpris...
The Torah mentions redeeming "the first-born of the unclean beast" in (Numbers 18:15), which could suggest that every unclean animal's firstborn must be redeemed. Camels, horses, d...
"among your sons shall you redeem": What is the intent of this? It is written (Numbers 18:16) "And redemption from one month"—general. "according to the monetary valuation, five sh...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael addresses a practical legal question arising from (Exodus 13:13): "Every human first-born among your sons shall you redeem." The commandment to redeem...
(Exodus 13:15) records a foundational obligation: "and every firstling of my sons I shall redeem." The redemption of the firstborn, known as pidyon haben, is one of the Torah's mos...
(Ibid. 21) "And the L–rd went before them by day with a pillar of cloud": We find there to have been seven clouds: here, (Numbers 14:14) twice, (Ibid. 9:19), (Exodus 40:36), (Ibid....
When the Israelites left Egypt and marched into the wilderness, they did not travel unprotected. God surrounded them with clouds of glory—miraculous pillars that shielded, guided, ...
The Torah places Israel's encampment "between Migdol and the sea," and the Mekhilta finds layers of meaning in this geography. The word "Migdol" sounds like "gedulah" — greatness. ...
Of all the idols in Egypt, only one survived the plagues: Ba'al Tzefon. The Mekhilta explains that God deliberately left this single idol standing — and then commanded Israel to ca...
When Moses gave the order to turn back toward Egypt — seemingly marching straight into danger — the people obeyed without argument. The Mekhilta says: "And they did so." Three word...
The Mekhilta cites one of the most arrogant speeches in all of Scripture to illustrate the hubris of empire. The king of Assyria declared: "My hand found, as a nest, the wealth of ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai offered his own version of the parable about Egypt's catastrophic miscalculation, and his telling amplified the scale of the blunder dramatically. A man inh...
Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel drew a startling comparison between two empires — Egypt after the Exodus and Rome in its prime — to illustrate how completely the departure of Israel had g...
The Mekhilta cites King Asa of Judah as yet another example of prayer triumphing over impossible military odds. The story appears in (II Chronicles 14:10), where Asa faces a massiv...
The Mekhilta identifies three separate places in the Torah where God explicitly commanded Israel never to return to Egypt. Three warnings — not one, not two, but three — each in a ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai made a breathtaking claim: the sun and the moon themselves serve as eternal witnesses that God had already committed to splitting the sea for Israel long be...
Rabbi Shimon HaTemani declared that God split the Red Sea in the merit of a single commandment: circumcision. The covenant of Abraham, inscribed in the flesh of every Jewish male, ...
Rabbi Nathan, citing Abba Yossi Hamechuzi, preserves a remarkable exchange between God and Moses at the Red Sea — one that reveals the extraordinary trust God had placed in His ser...
When God split the Red Sea for the Israelites, the miracle did not stop at a single body of water. The Mekhilta asks a pointed question: what about the waters in pits, cavities, ca...
Pappus expounded a verse from Job: "And He is one, and who can turn Him back? Whatever He desires, He does" (Job 23:13). His interpretation was straightforward — God is the sole ju...
Pappus and Rabbi Akiva clashed again, this time over one of the most enigmatic verses in Genesis. After Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God said: "Behold, the man has become l...
Rabbi Akiva posed a provocative question: where do we learn that each of the ten plagues that struck Egypt was actually five plagues in one? If this calculation is correct, the Egy...
The Torah records a transformation at the Red Sea: "And the people feared the Lord" (Exodus 14:31). The Mekhilta notes the significance of the word "feared." In the past, the Israe...
King Jehoshaphat marched his army into the desert of Tekoa and won a battle with nothing but faith. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic inter...
After the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and watched the waters crash over the Egyptian army, they burst into song. But how exactly did they sing? The Torah says (Exodus 15:1) "And...
The Mekhilta continues its meditation on the Song of the Sea by enumerating the reasons God is worthy of song. "I shall sing to the Lord," the Israelites declared — and one reason ...
Absalom, the handsome prince who rebelled against his own father King David, was famous throughout Israel for one thing above all else: his magnificent hair. The Mekhilta preserves...
The Mekhilta adds two more names to its list of nations whose arrogance led to their precise downfall: the great city of Tyre and its ruler Malchah (identified with the prince of T...
The Mekhilta concludes its extended discussion of Tyre and its ruler Malchah by citing the prophetic verdicts that sealed their fate — and then draws a sweeping theological conclus...
The Mekhilta preserves a beautiful declaration attributed to King David, addressed directly to God: "You are a trust, a help, and a support to all who enter the world — but to me m...
The Mekhilta presents a remarkable statement from the congregation of Israel, addressed directly to God, that explains exactly why they are singing at the Red Sea. "Lord of the wor...
"The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name" (Exodus 15:3). Rabbi Yehudah declares that this verse is extraordinarily rich — it illuminates truths that appear in many other pas...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
The Mekhilta takes the worldwide rejection of idolatry at the Red Sea and projects it forward into the future. What happened momentarily at the sea — when all nations opened their ...
The Song at the Sea declares, "Who is like You, nedar in holiness" (Exodus 15:11), and the Mekhilta finds a hidden layer of meaning compressed inside a single Hebrew word. The word...
The Mekhilta draws a sharp contrast between a human artisan and the divine Creator. When a mortal sculptor sets out to make a figure, he must build it piece by piece — starting fro...
The Mekhilta presents a second comparison between human artisans and the divine Creator — this time focusing on the problem of models. When a mortal craftsman is asked to make a fi...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael takes the phrase "working wonders" from the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:11) and expands it far beyond the events at the Red Sea. The Torah describes Go...
The Egyptians drowned at the Red Sea — but they also received burial. The Mekhilta asks the obvious question: in what merit were the Egyptians granted burial? They had enslaved Isr...
The Mekhilta offers a vivid and unsettling analogy for divine power over the nations. Picture a man holding eggs in his hand. He tilts his hand just slightly, barely a movement, an...
The Mekhilta offers an alternate reading of the verse "You will bring them and You will plant them." The key word is "plant." God does not merely promise to place Israel in the lan...
The Mekhilta tells a parable. Robbers break into a king's palace. They despoil everything of value. They kill the king's courtiers — his loyal servants, the people who maintained h...
