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Elijah was a regular visitor at Rabbi's academy. He would slip in quietly, take his seat, and listen. One first-of-the-month he came in late, and Rabbi asked him what had kept him....
Rav Kahana was a scholar, but he was poor, and poor scholars in Babylonia often had to work as peddlers to survive. He earned his bread by selling women's baskets door to door. One...
Elijah was traveling in disguise with a rabbi, as he often did in the legends. Toward evening they arrived at a large and imposing mansion, the home of a haughty, wealthy man. The ...
A man in need entrusted his entire savings to a neighbor who was famous for piety. The neighbor wore his observance on his sleeve; his neighbors spoke of him with admiration. The m...
The son of Rabbi Reuben the Libellarius was being married. The feast was in full swing. The music was loud, the wine was generous, and the family was radiant. An old stranger came ...
Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was so great that, during his lifetime, no rainbow ever appeared in the sky over the Land of Israel. The rainbow, in rabbinic tradition, is not only a coven...
The Rabbi had traveled with Elijah for days and seen strange justice everywhere. A poor couple had hosted them with warmth, and that night the family cow died. A wealthy man had tu...
Elijah the prophet and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi traveled together for a time, and Elijah agreed to be his companion on one condition: the rabbi must ask no questions. Rabbi Yehoshua...
The sages were debating whether a certain oven, built in sections and joined with sand, could become ritually unclean. Rabbi Eliezer ruled it pure. The majority ruled it impure. He...
A Roman governor once made the acquaintance of the prophet Elijah. The meeting changed him. Elijah persuaded him to take the huge wealth he had amassed in office and, instead of sq...
The prophet Elijah once appeared to a pious but struggling man and handed him four gold dinars. The man was astonished. Four dinars was enough to start a modest trade. It was a pro...
The prophet Elijah came to a young man with a simple offer. He could have seven good years of prosperity, either at the beginning of his life or at the end. The choice was his. The...
Rabbi Akiva had a pious first wife who fed and housed his five hundred students for years. On her deathbed she asked her daughter to continue the work. The daughter accepted the tr...
Gaster's exemplum No. 288 preserves a paired story from the Hadrianic persecutions of the second century — the same killing-field that took Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Chanina ben Terady...
Rabbi Abraham of Ashkelon was known in his city for the regularity of his prayers. He never missed the appointed hours; his Shacharit, Minchah, and Maariv were as steady as the sun...
A dying father called his only son to the bedside and left him two pieces of advice: occupy yourself with Torah study, and give generously to tzedakah. The inheritance he handed on...
In the house of Rabbi Elazar a strange filly was born. Every attendant who came near it was killed. Rabbi Elazar, unable to tame or destroy the beast, presented it to the king. At ...
A poor man, driven by his weeping wife and starving children, went to the marketplace in despair. He had nothing to sell and no trade to offer. He prayed to God for help, and the p...
A great scholar who spent all his days teaching Torah had a son late in life. He cherished the boy and kept him inside the study house, afraid that the world would distract him. Hi...
The Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed the teaching of Torah after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE. Rabbi Akiva refused to stop. He gathered students in public and taugh...
The Rabbis gave practical instructions for living in a town visited by plague. When pestilence walks the streets, do not walk down the middle of the road. The middle is where the a...
Elijah the Tishbite once appeared to Rav Yehudah, brother of Rav Salla the Holy, and the prophet asked him a question that could only come from a man who walked between worlds: &ld...
Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon was a mountain of a man. Broad-shouldered, thick-armed, he used to earn a few coins carrying travelers across the river on his back. His strength was legend...
Among the quietest bombshells in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a single line tucked into a genealogy. Kehath, son of Levi, lived a hundred and thirty-three years, and, the Targum adds,...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:10) takes the consecration of the altar of burnt offering and turns it into a prophecy. Anoint the altar, the meturgeman says, on account of th...
The Mishnah in Berakhot 9:2 prescribes a blessing for natural disasters. When someone witnesses a shooting star, an earthquake, lightning, or thunder, they recite: "Blessed be the ...
These aren't mistakes. They're invitations to delve deeper, to wrestle with the text and uncover hidden layers of meaning. Consider this: In (Hosea 2:1), we read about the children...
They're not mistakes. They're breadcrumbs, little hints that something deeper is going on beneath the surface of the text. And they invite us to pause, to question, to delve into t...
Bamidbar Rabbah (5) dives deep into this, using the verse "Do not rob the impoverished as he is impoverished..." (Proverbs 22:22) as a springboard for profound ethical reflection. ...
It wasn't just about following instructions; it was about life and death. A fascinating passage in Bamidbar Rabbah 5 delves into the story of the sons of Kehat, whose job it was to...
The ancient rabbis grappled with these questions constantly, searching for meaning in misfortune. One particularly fascinating exploration revolves around the affliction of leprosy...
The ancient Rabbis grappled with this very human impulse, especially when it came to matters of infidelity and divine justice. to a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 9 that ...
The passage kicks off with a powerful image: "In an earthenware vessel." Rabbi Meir offers a striking contrast. If the woman being accused of infidelity enjoyed fine wine in fine g...
To a fascinating passage from Bamidbar Rabbah 9, a midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpretation, on the Book of Numbers. This passage grapples with the laws surrou...
This Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), or interpretive commentary on the Book of Numbers, opens with a verse about the nazir, someone who takes a vow to abstain from cert...
Bamidbar Rabbah 12, a section of the classic midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) text, wrestles with this very question, using the construction of the Tabernacle – the mis...
From that small verse, the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) launches into a fascinating exploration of Judah, the tribe of lions, fiery furnaces, and ultimately, God's pr...
It's like peeling back the layers of an onion – the deeper you go, the more you discover. Today, we're diving into Bamidbar Rabbah 14, a section of the Bamidbar Rabbah, which itsel...
We find in Bamidbar Rabbah 14 a fascinating exploration of the verse, "Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in...
It's all about how we access, understand, and apply the teachings of Torah. The passage opens with a verse from Ecclesiastes (12:11): “The words of the wise are like goads, and lik...
Sometimes it feels like wading through ancient accounting ledgers. But hidden within those seemingly dry details are profound connections – whispers of cosmic harmony and echoes of...
Our story begins with the instruction to Moses to craft two silver trumpets, kliyot keseph, hammered meticulously. "Craft for you two silver trumpets; hammered, you shall craft the...
The story of Moses and the rebellion of Korah, Datan, and Aviram in the Book of Numbers gives us a powerful example. The Torah tells us, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Speak to...
It's not just about the big stories, but the tiny details, the way things are phrased. The Bamidbar Rabbah (Numbers Rabbah), a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbe...
God Himself steps in to clarify Pinḥas's lineage. But why now? What did God see that prompted this? The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 21,...
The Torah tells us, "When you besiege a city…you shall not destroy its trees" (Deuteronomy 20:19). Seems pretty straightforward. Protect the environment, even in wartime. But then ...
Today, let's talk about the daughters of Tzelofḥad. Their story, found within Bamidbar Rabbah, a compilation of rabbinic commentary on the Book of Numbers, is far more than just a ...
The Torah is full of it, if we know where to look. Sometimes, the lessons we need aren't found in grand pronouncements, but in the behavior of animals. Bamidbar Rabbah 23, a sectio...
