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The ancient texts are full of surprising takes.It tackles the complex and often painful topic of divorce and remarriage. The text states, "for she (a returned divorcée) is an abomi...
Jewish tradition is overflowing with that very impulse, etched into law and legend. Take, for example, the seemingly simple instruction in Deuteronomy: "and you shall not take as a...
It's a concept called shikchah, often translated as "forgotten sheaves," and it's all about leaving a little something for those in need. (Deuteronomy 24:19) tells us, "When you re...
It might seem insignificant, but in Jewish law, even the smallest forgotten thing holds immense value. We're delving into a fascinating area of Jewish agricultural law today, speci...
You don't even notice. A poor person finds it, uses it to buy food, and sustains themselves. Did you just perform an act of charity? That's precisely the scenario that Rabbi Elazar...
Today, let's talk about forgotten harvests, generosity, and oddly specific measurements. We're diving into Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal interpretations tied to the Book of...
Jewish tradition is full of these echoes, these connections, if we only know where to listen. Take the phrase, "to the stranger, to the orphan, and to the widow." It appears in Sif...
Specifically, (Deuteronomy 26:12). It’s a short verse, but it’s packed with meaning: "then you shall give to the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow." Sounds simple, do...
Within those intricate instructions, there’s a beautiful core of responsibility and community. to a small but fascinating corner of that world, found in the ancient text, Sifrei De...
Sifrei Devarim 310, a passage from the ancient commentary on Deuteronomy, really digs into this idea. It starts with a powerful line: "Reflect upon the years of generation upon gen...
Sifrei Devarim, a collection of legal midrashim (rabbinic interpretive commentary) (interpretations) on the Book of Deuteronomy, gives us a fascinating insight into this idea, focu...
A blessing: "Blessed is He that broadens Gad." What does it mean? Simply put, the passage teaches us that the territory allotted to the tribe of Gad expanded eastward. Pretty strai...
A man who had mastered Scripture, studied the Mishnah, and served many scholars dropped dead in the middle of his life. His widow seized his tefillin (leather phylacteries worn dur...
Elisha b. ’Abuya said: 1This chapter is devoted entirely to the teachings of Elisha b. ’Abuyah, a great scholar of the second century C.E. and teacher of R. Meir, who entered too d...
Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name (41:18:31). May our Rabb...
R' Shim'on ben Lakish said, "Pinhas is Eliahu. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him, 'You have made peace between Israel and Me in this world. Even in the next world, you are t...
The people of Israel are similar to a ship. If there is a hole in the lower hold, one does not say, ‘Only the lower hold has a hole in it.’ Rather they must immediately recognize t...
Sefer HaBahir or Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKana, as it is attributed to him, is a profound and wondrous book of Kabbalah, and it is held in gre...
The Feast of the Garden of Eden [in Seder Rav Amram Gaon 13b, and Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) vol. 5, 45] In the future to come, the Holy Blessed One will rev...
The Book of Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) [Reishit Chochmah: Gate of Fear: Chapter 12; Beit haMidrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary): Section 1] It...
"And a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets": This midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) is based on the verse, "And a certain woman of the wives of the sons...
"Zuta": "Zuta" is an Aramaic and Arabic word meaning "small" in contrast to "Raba" which means "large" or "great". There are Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) compilatio...
...And in Jonah it is written, "I would rather die than live." Jonah was the son of the woman of Zarfat. He had already died once, and knew that he would have rest, and Elijah did ...
The deeds of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi [from the Sefer Ma'asiot of Rabbi Nissim Ga'on; Beit Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)] Rabbi Joshua ben Levi discovered something so ...
The Book of the Wellspring of Wisdom When Moses ascended on high, a cloud came up against him, and Moses our teacher did not know if one rides it or holds it. Immediately, the clou...
Written but not Read "For rather Amnon" (II Samuel 13:33) is written, because at first Jonadab son of Shim'ah said "for Amnon alone has died," for the truth of the matter that Amno...
These are the ten questions that Rabbi Eliezer asked regarding the resurrection of the dead: The first one is - will God resurrect some of Israel or all of them? The answer is that...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire — appeared to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, one of the greatest sages of the third century, and offered him...
A child was traveling by boat when the prophet Elijah appeared to him — not as the fiery chariot-rider of heaven, but as a fellow passenger, a quiet man with an extraordinary secre...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but was taken alive to heaven (2 Kings 2:11) — appears throughout rabbinic literature as a mysterious figure who walks the earth in disguise, te...
Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon and the prophet Elijah once met on the road, and the Talmud preserves a strange and vivid account of what happened next. Elijah was traveling in disguise — ...
A desperately poor woman came before the prophet Elijah with nothing in the world except a single coin. She had no family to support her, no trade to sustain her, and no prospect o...
The prophet Elijah gave three gifts to a poor man — and the story of those gifts became a parable about the nature of divine assistance. The details of the gifts vary across differ...
Elijah, Slave & Builder. Yalk. Reubeni, Gen. f. 9b. Eliah Cohen, Meil Se- daka, § 568. Farhi, O. P. I, f. 28. Sef. Hamaasiyot, ed. Araki Cohen, ch. 104. Eisenstein, Oser, p. 325. Y...
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...
Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon, son of the great Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, was appointed by the Roman government as an official — a kind of investigator authorized to catch thieves. He wa...
Rabbi Beroka of Be Chozae had a gift. The prophet Elijah, the undying messenger, would sometimes appear to him in ordinary places — in a marketplace, among vendors and travelers — ...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi had a habit the other sages envied: the prophet Elijah came to him as a companion. The Exempla preserves the memory of one of their walks. Elijah took Rabbi J...
Rabbi Beroka of Be Hozai used to go walking through the crowds of the marketplace in the company of the prophet Elijah, who would point out to him those among the ordinary people w...
A small boy was traveling in a boat along the coast when the prophet Elijah appeared to him. Elijah was famous for wandering the world in disguise, testing Jews, delivering message...
There were once three poor men, each with a different longing. The first wanted only to be rich. The second wanted to become a great scholar. The third wanted a good wife. The prop...
When Noah released a bird to test whether the floodwaters had receded, the Torah tells us he sent out a raven (Genesis 8:7). The midrash on this verse imagines an argument breaking...
Isaiah writes, For My own sake, for My own sake will I do it (Isaiah 48:11). Why the repetition? Why does God say for My own sake twice? The midrash on this verse, preserved in Mid...
A man lay dying, and he gave his son one final instruction. With the money I leave you, go and trade. Put it to work. The son refused. People who trade are cheats, he told his fath...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, a third-century sage of the Land of Israel, was granted a companion on the road that no one else in his generation was offered. Elijah the prophet, the tirel...
Three Sages sat together — Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yossi, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai — and Rabbi Yehudah remarked how impressive the Romans were: they had built markets, bathhouses, ...
The prophet Elijah was traveling through the world with a disciple — the kind of journey the Sages often assigned Elijah in their stories, testing whether his disciple could see th...
Rabbi Yossi gave a teaching that startles the ear. The Shechinah, he said, has never descended below, and Moses and Elijah never truly ascended on high. Heaven and earth keep a sma...
