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We often think of the sea as a place of mystery, teeming with life we can barely imagine. But according to Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalm...
Jewish tradition offers some powerful comfort in those moments. Today, we're diving into a fascinating passage from Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of...
Our tradition understands that feeling. It even gives voice to it in a powerful, almost defiant way. to a passage from Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book...
The Midrash Tehillim, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Psalms, delves into this very question as it unpacks Psalm 119. It focuses on the verse, "Let the wicked be ash...
We all know the story from Exodus – how Moses stretched out his hand, and the waters parted, allowing the Israelites to escape the pursuing Egyptian army. But did you know just how...
That’s the feeling this midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), this interpretive story, from Midrash Tehillim (a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Psalms) rea...
The ancient text Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and interpretations, suggests that there just might be. The text draws our attention to the fifth day. ...
Trying to run from… God. That’s precisely the pickle Jonah found himself in. We all know the story of Jonah and the whale. But let's rewind a bit, because the beginning is just as ...
We all know the story of Jonah, swallowed whole for his disobedience. But what happened in the belly of the beast? Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, a fascinating collection of stories and i...
It tells us that on the sixth day of creation, God brought forth from the earth a beast so massive it sprawls across a thousand hills. Imagine that! A creature so large it uses ent...
Rabbi Zadok offers us a glimpse into the origins of the Anakim. These weren't just big people; they were giants born of arrogance, their hearts filled with pride. And what did this...
Our story begins with the verse from Ecclesiastes (3:11): "He has made everything beautiful in its time." The Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive comm...
Our story comes from Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 550, a compilation of rabbinic teachings and interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. It fleshes out the familiar tale of Yonah in surprisin...
The story of Haman, the villain of the Purim story, is full of them. And according to the Yalkut Shimoni, a compilation of rabbinic commentary on the Bible, Haman's plot to annihil...
The ancient Israelites felt that way too, and their story, preserved in the Sifrei Devarim, offers a powerful lesson. Let's rewind. The Israelites are poised to enter the Promised ...
One particular verse, (Deuteronomy 32:24-25), jumped out. It paints a grim picture of divine punishment, listing various calamities. But it's not just the calamities themselves, it...
It’s not just brute strength, or flashy charisma, but something more… nuanced. Let’s turn to the ancient text of Sifrei Devarim to unpack this a bit. It speaks of Joshua, Moses' su...
Ten decrees were decreed upon Adam, ten upon Eve, ten upon the serpent, and ten upon the earth: Ten upon man: He was clothed in garments of splendor, but God stripped them from him...
The Leviathan — the great sea creature that God created on the fifth day — was so enormous that the sages struggled to find words adequate to describe it. The Talmud (Bava Batra 74...
Plural word of unknown derivation used in the Hebrew Bible to denote the primitive Semitic house-gods whose cult had been handed down to historical times from the earlier period of...
Two words haunted ancient Israel: shedim (demons) and se'irim. The Israelites were forbidden from sacrificing to either. They sacrificed anyway. The se'irim were the hairy ones, sa...
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It's a statement of immense power, a foundation upon which an entire worldview is built. But what does it really mean? to t...
It’s a question that’s captivated mystics and scholars for centuries. And Jewish tradition offers a stunning answer: the world was created through God's Name. It’s a “wonderful and...
Jewish tradition offers some pretty wild and wonderful cosmologies. And a recurring image? Water. Waters upon waters, in fact. According to some mystical teachings, long ago, prime...
I'm not talking about God, necessarily, but about the powerful figures who manage the day-to-day operations of the cosmos. Well, buckle up, because we're about to dive into the sto...
Jewish tradition gives us a pretty vivid, and frankly terrifying, answer: Gehenna. Now, Gehenna – sometimes also called Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) –...
Serah, daughter of Asher, one of Jacob's sons. We find her name nestled in the list of those who went down to Egypt with Jacob to escape the famine. You can find it in (Genesis 46:...
The creation story, as we know it, tells of God fashioning the world, setting it firmly on its foundations (Tree of Souls, Ifa 7838). Then came Adam, the first human. God brought h...
It wasn't just bad manners, folks. The story, as the rabbis tell it, is far more… complicated. Adam was made in God's image. And so was his son Seth, and Seth's son, Enosh. Accordi...
Turns out, the rabbinic tradition has quite a bit to say about its motivations and character. The Torah tells us, "Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out t...
We can see this theme beautifully illustrated in Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah) 4, which draws a powerful lesson from the seemingly straightforward verse, “The charge of Elazar, ...
The ancient rabbis grappled with these questions constantly, searching for meaning in misfortune. One particularly fascinating exploration revolves around the affliction of leprosy...
Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, dives deep into the prophet Amos's rebuke of those who are "tranquil in Zion" (Amos 6:1). Who are these ...
It's a fascinating passage, brimming with insights about responsibility, destiny, and the power of prayer. The passage opens with a discussion of the nazirite vow, a voluntary comm...
His story, recounted in Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah) 18, is a wild ride of ambition, rebellion, and some seriously bad consequences. So, "Korah took…" That's how the story begi...
In Jewish tradition, there are moments where even MOSES, our greatest prophet, seems to do just that. to one of those fascinating instances from Bamidbar Rabbah 19. The verse we're...
The ancient rabbis did, and they spun some incredible tales around the question. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 21, delves into this v...
The book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, recounts the Israelites' journey through the wilderness. In chapter 32, we encounter the tribes of Reuben and Gad. "The children of Reuben ...
It's not just about what’s on the ground, but what fills the air above us. Bereshit Rabbah, that magnificent collection of rabbinic interpretations of Genesis, puts it this way: "A...
They left us some fascinating insights in the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Gene...
Rabbi Nehemya of Kefar Sihon starts us off by referencing (Exodus 20:11): "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, [the sea]…" He focuses on three essential elemen...
Why "the man" instead of just "man"? It seems to be alluding to someone specific… but who? Well, according to a fascinating interpretation in Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of ancie...
We usually picture temptation as a simple act, but the Rabbis of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) saw something far more complex, a twisted theological argument desig...
It turns out, our tradition has some fascinating ideas about this, rooted in the stories of Noah and the Flood. We find in (Genesis 9:1), immediately after the Flood, that “God ble...
Rabbi Akiva knew the feeling well! The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) tells us he was once teaching, and noticed his audience starting to nod off. So, being the quick-w...
The Torah is full of incredible journeys, and sometimes, the distance covered seems almost impossible. to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah (59) about Eliezer, Abraham's s...
As we learn in Bereshit Rabbah 60, it's a theme that runs through some pretty significant stories in our tradition. The passage opens by quoting (Genesis 24:13-15), the story of El...
Our story begins with the verse: "It was after the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son, and Isaac lived beside Be’er Laḥai Ro’i" (Genesis 25:11). Be’er Laḥai Ro’i, meaning ...
