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The second heaven in Sefer HaRazim takes a dark turn. Where the first heaven teems with angels who serve human needs—weather, healing, agriculture—the second heaven is populated by...
It’s pretty funny. : in this world, you could theoretically wander into an orchard on Shabbat (the Sabbath) and pick a fig. The tree wouldn’t exactly yell at you. It just stands th...
Rabbah stumbled upon a sight that would make any foodie's jaw drop: two geese. But these weren't your average farmyard fowl. Oh no. These geese were so incredibly, astonishingly fa...
The Talmud records some of the most intimate prayers ever spoken—personal confessions the great Sages whispered after their formal prayers were complete. According to Berakhot 17a,...
How will God judge the dead? The body will claim innocence—it is just dirt without a soul. The soul will claim innocence—it is pure spirit without a body. Neither sinned alone. Acc...
The parable of the blind man and the lame man in the orchard, told by Antoninus to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi in Sanhedrin 91b, establishes one of the Talmud's most important doctrines: b...
Rav Nachman once made a statement that shocked his colleague: "Jacob our father never died." Rabbi Yitzchak pushed back immediately. "They embalmed him. They eulogized him. They bu...
The Feast of the Garden of Eden [in Seder Rav Amram Gaon 13b, and Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) vol. 5, 45] In the future to come, the Holy Blessed One will rev...
The Book of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) [Reishit Chochmah: Gate of Fear: Chapter 12; Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary): Section 1] It...
It was in the days of Antiochus, king of Greece, he was a great and mighty king, he was powerful in his governance, and all kings listened to him. He conquered many countries and m...
...It is written, "The Lord established the earth with wisdom"—this is the Torah. The Torah, where was it and where will it be? Why is it called Torah? Because a teaching descended...
..."Let not the rich person glorify themselves with their wealth (Yirm 9:22)." This [refers to] Korach the Levite, who had three hundred mules just to carry the load of the keys to...
Story of Eldad the Danite, Narrative B In the name of the LORD God of Israel, blessed be His name, of our God the King, King of kings, Who chose Israel from among all nations and g...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Chacham HaRazim" (The Sage of Secrets): A Midrash regarding angels and gematria (Jewish numerology). According to Stein Schneider, this i...
Legend from "Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Eicha Rabati" [From "Beit Akeid Haggadot" Part 1, 37] God said to Jeremiah, "Go to Anathoth," for as long as Jeremiah was in...
Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Yitbarach (May He Be Blessed) Blessed be the name of the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He, who lives and endures forever and eve...
The Book of the Wellspring of Wisdom When Moses ascended on high, a cloud came up against him, and Moses our teacher did not know if one rides it or holds it. Immediately, the clou...
“And of Benjamin he said, The Lord's beloved…” (Devarim 33:12) One verse says “As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out…” (...
Rabbi Yehuda said, "Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) before the Holy One, Blessed be He: One of wholly righteous people; and they are immediately writt...
The Aggadah (non-legal rabbinic narrative) of Shimon Kefa preserves a remarkable tradition about how the early Jewish sages worked to establish a clear separation between the Jewis...
[From the Sefer Raziel] Rabbi Ishmael said, "I saw the King of Kings sitting on a high and exalted throne, with His legions standing before Him, upon His right and upon His left. (...
(Ib. b) We are taught: The sages made a fence to their words [to protect their ordinances], lest a man coming from the field in the evening, would say: "I will go home, eat a littl...
R. Elazar b. Abina said : "He who recites Te-hila l' David (Ps. 145) three times a day may be sure of an inheritance in the world to come." What is the reason? Shall I say because ...
R. Elazar b. Abina said further: "Much more is said [regarding the actions] of Michael than is said of Gabriel; for in describing Michael, it is written (Is. 6, 6.) Then flew unto ...
(Fol. 5a) R. Levi b. Chama, in the name of Simon b. Lakish said: "At all times let man stir up his good inclination against the evil inclination), for it is said (Ps. 4:5) Tremble,...
We are taught that R. Simon b. Jochai said: "Three precious gifts the Holy One, praised be He! bestowed on Israel, and none of them was bestowed without affliction. The gifts are, ...
A disciple recited before R. Jochanan: "Whoever occupies himself with the study of the Torah and with the practice of loving kindness and (Ib. b.) buries his children [during his l...
Rabbi Yochanan made a promise that sounds almost too good to be true: "Whoever blesses over a full cup is granted an inheritance without boundaries." The teaching, preserved in Ein...
(10) R. Isaac said: "A year which is poor (Israel appears humble) in the beginning, will be rich in the end (Israel's request will be granted). What is the reason for it? For it is...
(11) R. Kruspedai said in the name of R. Jochanan: "Three books are opened on New Year's Day: one for the grossly wicked, one for the perfectly righteous, and one for the intermedi...
(22) We are taught in a Baraitha, R. Simeon b. Jochai said: "There are four matters that R. Akiba expounded, but which I interpret differently. The fast of the fourth, means the se...
It is taught (in a baraita (a teaching from outside the Mishnah)): Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Yosei, said: "All acts of charity and kindness that Jews perform in this world make gr...
What happens to a person after death? The Talmud (Yoma 35b) presents the judgment that awaits every soul — and reveals that no excuse will be accepted, because for every temptation...
The folk traditions of Israel contain many tales of encounters between ordinary Jews and the demons that inhabit the hidden corners of the world. The story known as "The Demon and ...
The earliest Hebrews believed the dead descended into Sheol — a colorless underworld where all souls, righteous and wicked alike, lingered in shadow (Isaiah 14:15). Only the rarest...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
"Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power" (Exodus 15:6). The rabbis tracked the right hand of God through every book of scripture and found the same pattern everywhere: when ...
King David grew old, and no one could warm him (1 Kings 1:1). The doctors tried blankets. They tried attendants. His body, which had survived lions and bears and Goliath and armies...
Jacob said: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my justice has passed away from my God" (Isaiah 40:27). This was Israel speaking — the whole nation's complaint condensed into one ...
The Book of Proverbs opens with a line that, on its surface, seems almost paradoxical. Why would a wise man need to hear more? Isn't wisdom already wisdom? Midrash Mishlei, the agg...
The opening verse of Numbers 7 says a single thing twice. Moses "anointed the Tabernacle and sanctified it," and then the verse adds, "and he anointed them and sanctified them." Wh...
Rosh Hashanah is not only about apples and honey. In the talmudic imagination, it is the day when three great books are opened in heaven, and every soul is sorted. Ein Yaakov, Rabb...
The procedure for a capital trial under the Sanhedrin, as preserved in the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 6) and carried forward in the 1901 anthology Hebraic Literature, sounds less like an e...
At the end of days, the Rabbis of the Talmud (Bava Batra 75a, Pesachim 119b) tell us, the Holy One will set a great banquet for the righteous. The main course will be the flesh of ...
Turnus Rufus, the Roman governor of Judea in the early second century, once pulled Rabbi Akiva into a debate on the Shabbat. Rufus opened with the move he thought would win. "I hol...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, a third-century sage famous in the Talmud for his conversations with the prophet Elijah and with the Angel of Death, once asked a question only a very confid...
A ma'aseh preserved among the Gaster manuscripts tells the story of a rich man and his wife who were, by every measure, bad people. Their house had four walls, and in one of those ...
A ma'aseh preserved in the Gaster manuscripts describes a strange people in a distant country who had built their religion around fire. Every morning at dawn they lit one great sta...
