4,108 texts · Page 4 of 86
The dead do not simply lie still. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, the righteous dead have a vast habit...
The Garden of Eden is not a meadow. It is a city of palaces. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, there are...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi wanted to see Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death). The Messiah refused. "It is not fitting for the righteous to see it," he said, "for ...
Before Adam named the animals, God brought them before the angels and challenged them to do it first. They could not. Adam named every creature instantly. God turned to the angels ...
After the expulsion from Eden, Adam was separated from Eve for 130 years. He slept alone. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Mo...
Cain was the first city builder. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, after marrying his wife Qalmana, Cain...
The Hebrew Bible names Adam's famous sons. But the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, names the ones you have never heard ...
Haran, the eldest son of Terah, made his living selling his father's idols to the Chaldeans. His younger brother Abraham refused to worship them. When the Chaldeans came to test bo...
When Naphtali grew old and felt his strength fading, he gathered his children and gave them one final command. It was not about silver or gold. "I speak to you about a very easy ma...
Potiphar's wife tried every day to seduce Joseph. She dressed in her finest ornaments, changed her clothes constantly, and spoke to him with increasing urgency. But Joseph mastered...
When Pharaoh sought counsel on what to do about the growing Israelite population, he summoned three men: Reuel the Midianite, Job, and Balaam of Petor. Their answers determined the...
When God told Moses that his time had come, Moses refused to accept it. He drew a circle on the ground, stood inside it, and declared: "I will not move from this place until the de...
God drew up the blueprints for a world. They failed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon and first translate...
On the third day of creation, the earth was a flat, featureless plain submerged under water. Then God spoke. Mountains erupted upward and scattered across the surface. Valleys tore...
God placed seven planets in the firmament and gave each one a distinct personality. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ...
God wanted to create a human being. The angels said no. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon, God first appro...
Before every human birth, an angel named Lailah (לילה) receives a direct order from God. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerah...
Three men approach death. Each begs their family for something to bring to the next world. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jer...
Every compartment of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) contains 7,000 crevices. Every crevice contains 7,000 scorpions. Every scorpion has 300 cavities, an...
Paradise has two gates made of carbuncle, and sixty myriads of ministering angels guard them. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by ...
The contest before King Darius began with the first prince arguing that nothing on earth is as powerful as a king. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew c...
Haman did not just plot in the Persian court. He plotted in heaven. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Ha...
On the night King Ahasuerus could not sleep, something far stranger was happening in heaven. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by ...
Solomon's throne was not a chair. It was a machine—a towering structure of ivory, gold, and living mechanisms that no king could ever replicate. According to the Chronicles of Jera...
The betrayal came from within. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, a man named Simeon from the tribe of Ben...
Judah Maccabee did not wait to be attacked. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, when the Macedonian general...
The Lord ordained that Judah Maccabee would not die in bed. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, at the end ...
Abraham had demolished the idols. Now he turned his mind to the elements themselves. "Fire is more worthy of honor than all things formed," he reasoned, "because even that which is...
The Eternal Mighty One said: "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "Look down at the stars beneath your feet. Count them for me. Make known to me their number." Abraham looked down from...
God told Abraham to look beneath his feet at the firmaments and understand the creation that was foreshadowed in the expanse, the creatures existing upon it, and the age prepared a...
For sixty days and sixty nights, Enoch wrote without stopping. The archangel Pravuil — heaven's own scribe, the wisest of all the archangels — dictated to him the totality of creat...
God summoned Enoch to sit at His left hand, beside the archangel Gabriel. Then He spoke — not through angels, not through intermediaries, but directly, with His own voice — and rev...
God continued speaking to Enoch, and the story of creation grew stranger and more terrible. He had made the heavenly circle firm. He commanded the waters below heaven to gather int...
God told Enoch how He built the world in six days — and how it all went wrong. On the third day, He planted paradise and enclosed it with flaming angel-guards. On the fourth, He se...
Uriel took Ezra back to the beginning. Before the portals of the world were in place. Before the winds blew or thunder sounded. Before the innumerable hosts of angels were gathered...
This isn't your typical biblical story. It’s a myth, a folk tale, preserved in the Israel Folktale Archives, about a wonder child who lived during the time of the Temple in Jerusal...
It's a concept that's woven deep into Jewish lore, appearing in various forms throughout our sacred texts and stories. One particularly compelling tale features Rabbi Loew, the leg...
The Jewish tradition has a fascinating, and sometimes troubling, figure that embodies this very idea: the golem. The most famous golem story, of course, revolves around the Golem o...
Time and again, the Jewish community of Prague faced the horrifying accusation of blood libel – the false claim that they used the blood of children in their Passover matzah. These...
It’s a wild one, and it involves a homunculus, a miniature, artificially created human. The story goes that Maimonides had a brilliant young assistant, a student he poured his hear...
Amram, Moses’s father, wasn't just any man. He was a skilled doctor, so renowned that he served Pharaoh himself! The text in Tree of Souls tells us of his wisdom, and of God's hand...
The Torah tells us about such a person: Moses. When he descended from Mount Sinai after those momentous forty days and nights, he was… different. The text says his body was bathed ...
What became of Cain? The Bible tells us he wandered, marked and cursed, after the murder of his brother Abel. But the Torah is silent on the details of his death. So, naturally, th...
It’s a question that’s captivated mystics and theologians for centuries. Our tradition offers some pretty wild and wondrous answers! According to Legends of the Jews, that incredib...
There's a wild story in Jewish tradition that explains exactly why, involving a heavenly court, a lot of pleading, and even a little bit of divine disappointment. The Legends of th...
Jewish tradition has some pretty incredible answers. to the very first day of creation. According to Legends of the Jews by Ginzberg, on day one, God brought forth ten things. : te...
on the second day, God brought forth four distinct creations: the firmament (rakia in Hebrew), hell, fire, and the angels. Now, the firmament isn't just the heavens we saw on day o...
Before the third day, the earth was a watery expanse. Then, God commanded, "Let the waters be gathered together," and suddenly, mountains and hills burst forth, creating basins for...
