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Angelology constitutes the theological branch examining "superhuman beings dwelling in heaven, who, on occasion, reveal to man God's will and execute His commands." This doctrine d...
In early biblical usage, Satan functioned primarily as "an adversary" in various contexts—military enemies, courtroom accusers, or obstacles. The Book of Job represents a pivotal s...
Adam is the Hebrew and Biblical designation for humanity generally, and specifically for the progenitor of the human race. According to Genesis i, mankind was created on the sixth ...
The article presents Eden as an "earthly paradise" described in Genesis ii-iii where Adam and Eve resided before their fall. The term "Eden" likely derives from Assyrian "edinu" (m...
Dreams have at all times and among all peoples received much attention. In the youth of a nation, as in the youth of an individual, dreams are so vivid that they appear to be hardl...
Name of the prince of demons. The meaning of the name and the identity of the two forms here given are still in dispute. Asmodeus first appears in the Book of Tobit. According to T...
Prince of the demons, and an important figure both in Talmudic and in post-Talmudic literature, where he appears as accuser, seducer, and destroyer. His name is etymologized as = "...
The name of a supernatural being mentioned in connection with the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Lev. xvi.). After Satan, for whom he was in some degree a preparation, Azazel enjo...
The Throne of Glory is an important feature in the Cabala. It is placed at the highest point of the universe (Ḥag. 12b); and is of the same color as the sky—purple-blue, like the "...
Metatron is the name of an angel found only in Jewish literature. Elisha b. Abuyah, seeing this angel in the heavens, believed there were "two powers" or divinities (Hag. 15a). Whe...
A class of celestial beings appears only once in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the prophet Isaiah's visionary experience (Isaiah 6:2 onwards). Isaiah observed multiple seraphim...
The cherub represents a winged celestial being frequently referenced throughout Scripture. According to the prophet Ezekiel's vision, cherubim appear as a group of four living crea...
"Behemoth" denotes the hippopotamus, though the Biblical description contains mythical elements suggesting these were not ordinary animals. The creatures appear in Job xl, where be...
The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accor...
The term "paradise" likely derives from Persian origins. Within the Hebrew Bible, it appears only three times: Canticles 4:13, (Ecclesiastes 2:5), and (Nehemiah 2:8). The first usa...
The concept of soul in Jewish tradition derives from Genesis, where God endows humans with "spirit or breath" (ruah). Initially, this spirit was "inseparably connected, if not whol...
Magic is described as "the pretended art of producing preternatural effects," constituting one of two principal divisions of occultism alongside divination. Effects produced may be...
God looked down at the world before the flood and saw something He hadn't seen since the days of Adam — a civilization that had talked itself into impunity. The wicked had done the...
God told Noah to enter the ark, and then, after the flood, He told him to leave it. "Go out from the ark" (Genesis 8:16). A simple command — except the rabbis hear in it a whole th...
When a lion roars, every animal in the forest freezes. Even the ones who have never been hunted. Even the ones too far away to be prey. The sound itself is the message: there is so...
King Solomon stood before God and prayed at the dedication of the Temple. "Master of the Universe," he said, "let everything else be set aside and focus on my prayer and supplicati...
Abraham was ninety-nine years old when God renewed the covenant (Genesis 17:1). The sons of Korah composed a psalm about this moment — "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty on...
"I will not break my covenant, nor change that which has come out of my lips" (Psalm 89:35). The binding of Isaac begins with this verse in Aggadat Bereshit — not with the command ...
"Blessed is the man who fears the Lord" (Psalm 112:1). The rabbis asked: what ultimately happens to him? And they landed on Ecclesiastes: "In the end, everything will be heard — fe...
"Until the day breathes and the shadows flee" (Song of Songs 2:17). Israel in exile asks: how long? The kingdoms that rule over them are the shadows — empire after empire, each cas...
King David was sick and bedridden for thirteen years. His enemies waited. "When will he die and his name perish?" (Psalm 41:6). The midrash reports that seven sheep were laid besid...
When Israel does the will of the Almighty, they rise like ministering angels. This is Aggadat Bereshit's boldest claim about obedience — not that it earns reward, but that it trans...
The vision of Obadiah — the shortest prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible — is entirely about the punishment of Edom. Rabbi Berachiah asked: why did God choose Obadiah specifically f...
A voice cries in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3). The Aggadat Bereshit connects this voice — the hera...
"But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me'" (Isaiah 49:14). And God answers — not with proof of presence but with a reminder of what "remembering" actual...
"And the El Shaddai grant you mercy" (Genesis 43:14). Jacob is sending Benjamin to Egypt — his youngest, his only remaining connection to Rachel, the son he can least afford to los...
"Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob" (Jeremiah 2:4). Not the word of Jeremiah. Not the word of the priesthood. The word of the Lord — direct, unmediated, demanding attenti...
God is known in this world by bringing judgment upon those who need it. This is Aggadat Bereshit's uncomfortable claim: "The Lord is known for executing judgment; the wicked are en...
"Go forth and gaze, daughters of Zion, upon King Solomon" (Song of Songs 3:11). The sages of Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:3 read that word tziyyon as m'tzuyanim — the distinguished ones...
When Nimrod hurled Abraham into the blazing furnace at Ur of the Chaldeans — the place whose very name, the Rabbis note, means fire — the angel Gabriel stood up in the heavenly cou...
The Rabbis of the Talmud (Yoma 21b) teach that there are six kinds of fire in the world, and not all of them behave the way fire should. The first is ordinary fire — it eats but do...
When the Holy One announced that He was going to give the Torah to flesh and blood, the angels objected. "What is man that You are mindful of him," they said, quoting the psalm, "a...
The Torah says something strange when Balaam, the prophet hired by Balak of Moab to curse Israel, finally opened his mouth. And the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth (Numbers 23:5)...
At the foot of Mount Sinai, when Israel answered the Torah with five Hebrew words — na'aseh v'nishma, "we will do and we will hear" (Exodus 24:7) — they did something strange. They...
(Genesis 6:6) is one of the most unsettling verses in the Torah: And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. How could the All-Know...
The prophet Ezekiel, by the river Chebar, saw the heavens open and a chariot descend. Beneath it were four living creatures, and each creature had four faces. As for the likeness o...
The people of Israel once came before God with a complaint that only a working people could make. Rabbi Eliezer preserved their words: "We are anxious to be occupied day and night ...
Rav Acha taught that before Adam was created, God turned to the ministering angels and consulted with them. "Shall we make man?" He asked. The angels answered honestly: "What good ...
Rabbah bar Nahmani, the great head of the academy at Pumbeditha in the early fourth century, was accused by the government of a crime invented out of jealousy — that he was keeping...
When Nimrod the wicked cast Abraham into the fiery furnace for smashing his father's idols, the angel Gabriel stepped forward in the heavenly court. Ribbono shel Olam, Master of th...
As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi drew near the end of his earthly career, the angel of death was sent to fetch him. Because of the Rabbi's merit, the angel was instructed to show him eve...
Of the four sages who entered Pardes, the mystical orchard of divine secrets, one emerged and lost his belief. His name was Elisha ben Abuyah, and the tradition eventually renamed ...
A kabbalistic manual preserved in Kitzur Shalah (an abridgment of the early seventeenth century ethical-mystical work Shenei Luchot HaBrit by Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz) describes the p...
