21 texts
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 voice came again. Twice it called his name: "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "It is I. Fear not, for I am before the worlds, a mighty God who has created the light of the world...
When the voice stopped speaking, Abraham looked in every direction. No one. No breath of a man anywhere. His spirit was seized with terror. His soul fled from him. He became like a...
Abraham turned to the angel in distress. "Why have you brought me up here? I cannot see anymore. I am already grown weak, and my spirit is departing from me." The mortal body was f...
A voice came from the midst of the fire. "Abraham, Abraham!" "Here I am." "Consider the expanses beneath the firmament on which you are now placed, and see that on no single expans...
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...
Abraham asked: "O Eternal, Mighty One! What is this picture of the creatures?" God answered: "This is my will with regard to those who exist in the divine world-counsel. It seemed ...
Enoch was three hundred and sixty-five years old when the visitation came. He was alone in his house. Resting on his bed. Asleep. And in that sleep, a terrible distress seized his ...
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...
Then God gave Enoch his mission — and a deadline. "Everything I have told you," the Lord said, "everything you have seen — from the lowest heaven to My throne, all the hosts and al...
"My beloved children," Enoch said, "hear the admonition of your father — not from my lips, but from the lips of the Lord. Everything that is, was, and will be until the day of judg...
Thirty years after Babylon burned Jerusalem to the ground, a man named Ezra lay on his bed in the city of his captors and could not sleep. His thoughts boiled. His heart raged. Bec...
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...
"Many have been created, but few shall be saved." With those words ringing in his ears, Ezra launched into the most daring prayer in all of Jewish apocalyptic literature — a prayer...
This is one of the most stunning visions in all of Jewish literature. A grieving woman becomes a city of light. And no one — not even Ezra — sees it coming. God had told Ezra to go...
Seven days of fasting. Then, in the dead of night, Ezra dreamed. A wind rose from the sea and churned all its waves. And from the heart of the sea — not its surface, not its shallo...
On the third day, Ezra sat under an oak tree. A voice came from a bush opposite him. "Ezra, Ezra." He rose to his feet. "Here I am, Lord." The voice from the bush was deliberate. U...
The opening of the book of Ezekiel contains a grammatical oddity that the Mekhilta refuses to ignore. The phrase "the word of the Lord was, was" (hayoh hayah) uses the verb twice, ...
A non-Jew once asked Rabban Gamliel a question that seemed simple but concealed a philosophical trap. "Your God," he said, "is supposedly the master of the entire universe. He crea...
