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Strip away the medieval slander and a real tradition of Jewish magic emerges—one that Joshua Trachtenberg traced from the Bible through the Talmud and into the folk practices of me...
Jewish demonology recognizes three main classes of evil spirits, though as Joshua Trachtenberg noted, medieval Jews had long stopped distinguishing between them. The shedim (שדים) ...
Demons were not abstract theology for medieval Jews. They were a daily hazard requiring specific countermeasures, and Joshua Trachtenberg catalogued an elaborate system of protecti...
If demons crowded the dark spaces of medieval Jewish life, angels filled the light. Joshua Trachtenberg showed that Jewish angelology was not merely theological—it was operational....
Medieval Jewish magic was not freestyle improvisation. It was governed by strict rules, precise ingredients, and exact timing—a technology of the supernatural with its own internal...
Amulets were everywhere in medieval Jewish life. Pregnant women wore them to prevent miscarriage. Children carried them against the evil eye. Men tucked inscribed parchments into t...
Medieval Jews did not merely fear demons. They fought them—systematically, ritually, and with an arsenal of weapons that combined Talmudic tradition, Kabbalistic innovation, and sh...
Despite the Torah's explicit prohibition against divination (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), medieval Jews practiced it extensively—and spent centuries debating exactly where the line fell ...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of visualizing that feeling, especially when it comes to exile and redemption. It involves the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah (ש...
Rabbi Yitzchak raised a sharp astronomical objection to a proposed method of calculating the calendar. If you followed a certain interpretation, he argued, the moon would already b...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, offers a remarkable insight into the nature of obedience. The Torah says of the Israelites: "and they did" — referring to the Passove...
The Torah commands placing tefillin (leather phylacteries worn during prayer) "upon your hand." But where exactly on the hand? The Hebrew word yad can mean the entire arm from shou...
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 immediately balances its teaching about short prayers with a counter-example. On another occasion, a disciple led the prayer service before Rabbi Elazar and was extrem...
Quail fell from the sky in quantities that defy imagination. Rabbi Yoshiyah, quoted in the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael (a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive comme...
The Torah uses the Hebrew word "bagdah" in connection with a father who has sold his daughter as a maid-servant (Exodus 21:8). The Mekhilta interprets this word as a description of...
The Torah addresses a grim scenario: one person strikes another, and the victim's survival is uncertain. The verse states that if the injured party recovers, "the striker shall be ...
Rabbi Akiva offered his own reading of "the owner of the ox is absolved." He argued that the tam's owner is absolved from paying for the value of fetuses. His reasoning: both a man...
"And if a man open a pit" — the Torah addresses the liability of someone who uncovers or creates an open pit in a public area. But the Mekhilta notices that the verse mentions only...
"And there fall there" — the Torah describes an animal falling into an uncovered pit. The Mekhilta specifies: this must happen "in the normal mode of falling." The animal must fall...
Rebbi — the title given to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — examines a case in the Torah's laws of damages involving two oxen...
(Exodus 22:10) states: "The oath of the Lord shall be between the two of them." The Mekhilta extracts four separate legal principles from this single phrase, each based on the word...
Jewish tradition has some fascinating, and surprisingly relatable, ideas. One captivating story, found in Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Aleph Bet (5:8-9), suggests tha...
The Torah actually grapples with this very question, and the answer, as you might expect, is layered and fascinating. : Moses, standing before the burning bush, is tasked with lead...
We often picture God as all-powerful, creating worlds and intervening in human affairs. But did you know there's a tradition that imagines God as… a Torah scholar? It’s true! The B...
Jewish tradition dares to imagine a God who weeps. And perhaps nowhere is that more powerfully depicted than in the legends surrounding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. ...
Bava Metzia 59b), a story about rabbinic authority and, surprisingly, God's good-natured acceptance of it. It all starts with a disagreement. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a renowned...
It might surprise you. Imagine all the angels gathered, a celestial court in session. They turn to the Master of the Universe himself and ask, "What day is Rosh ha-Shanah?" That's ...
It’s a question that has captivated Jewish thinkers for centuries. When God set about creating the world as we know it, what did God have to work with? The tradition tells us that ...
We all know the story from Genesis, about God speaking the world into existence. But what if there were other, older stories? Stories that paint an even more vivid and active pictu...
Jewish tradition offers some fascinating, and at times unsettling, explanations. One story, found scattered in sources like Pesikta Rabbati and Yalkut Re'uveni, centers around a fi...
The kind that make you tilt your head and think, "Wait, did I read that. " One of those moments, right up there with the parting of the Red Sea, is the story of the sun standing st...
The Jewish mystical tradition certainly does. It paints a fascinating, and sometimes even controversial, picture of Adam as both the first and the last of God's creations. Now, we ...
Adam's first wife wasn't quite the helpmate he expected. She was, shall we say, a little too clever, a little too strong for him. Can you imagine? Apparently, Adam wasn’t thrilled....
Jewish tradition offers a beautiful, mystical answer: the Guf, the Treasury of Souls. Also known as the Chamber of Creation, it’s the ultimate waiting room. Imagine a place brimmin...
For Elijah, the prophet, and his devoted disciple Elisha, it was reality. Our story begins as the Lord is about to take Elijah up to heaven. Elijah and Elisha are journeying from G...
Jewish mystical tradition speaks of something called the Pargod, and it's more fascinating than you might imagine. The Pargod (פרגוד) is described as an extraordinary curtain, a co...
The most common tradition identifies Metatron as the angel who was once Enoch, the mortal man who "walked with God" (Genesis 5:24) and was transformed into the mightiest angel in h...
Jewish tradition has a fascinating answer, a story whispered through generations about an angel named Lailah. Lailah, the Angel of Conception, is like the midwife of souls. Accordi...
Where did the Angel of Death come from? It’s a question that’s haunted humanity for millennia. Was it there from the very beginning, a shadow lurking in the nascent universe? Or di...
Jewish tradition holds a fascinating idea: that God, in creating the world, deliberately left one small part of it unfinished. I know. Why would God do that? Well, according to Pir...
It's easy to imagine him and Eve, heartbroken, trying to make sense of their new, harsher reality. But the stories don't stop there. Some delve into a rather…unsettling chapter of ...
Maybe it was just your imagination... or maybe, just maybe, it was Lilith. The Zohar, that foundational text of Kabbalah, tells us of a terrifying figure born not of dust like Adam...
Lilith, the Queen of Zemargad, is breathtakingly beautiful from the head down to her navel. But below? Instead of legs, a raging inferno. According to Kabbalot in Mada'ei ha-Yahadu...
Sometimes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... and sometimes, well, it's a whole orchard of strange and wondrous fruit. Let’s journey back in time with Rabbah bar Bar Hanna...
Tonight, we're diving into the shadowy world of Lilith, the night demoness, a figure both terrifying and… strangely compelling. The folklore surrounding Lilith paints a vivid pictu...
A fiery prophet, a champion of God, and a recurring figure who pops up in Jewish stories whenever things need a divine kick in the pants. And Lilith… well, Lilith is a whole other ...
These beings are, in a way, leftovers from the very first week of existence. The story goes that God was creating, creating, creating, all day long for six straight days. But as th...
