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ANTIGONOS OF SOCHO RECEIVED THE TRADITION FROM SIMON THE JUST. HE USED TO SAY: BE NOT [20b] LIKE SERVANTS WHO SERVE THE MASTER FOR THE SAKE OF RECEIVING A REWARD,1Or, ‘gratuity’; s...
The Hebrew Bible opens with a spare, magnificent account of creation in seven days. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed between the 2nd and 7th centuries C...
The Hebrew Bible says God told Noah to enter the ark, and that rain would begin in seven days (Genesis 7:4). It does not explain why seven days. The Targum Jonathan does, and the e...
When the Flood ended, the Hebrew Bible says God sent a wind to dry the earth (Genesis 8:1). The Targum Jonathan says God sent "the wind of mercies." One word changes the theology. ...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 4) transforms the Sinai revelation into something far more vivid than the Hebrew original. Where the Bible says God spoke from the fire, the Tar...
The Torah says do not fear superior armies. Targum Jonathan says something far more radical—all the enemy's horses and chariots "are accounted as a single horse and a single chario...
The Torah's divorce law in (Deuteronomy 24) states that a second husband may dislike the wife. Targum Jonathan adds something astonishing: "should they proclaim from the heavens ab...
The Torah's promise of return from exile in (Deuteronomy 30) is hopeful. Targum Jonathan makes it messianic. Where the Hebrew says God will gather the scattered, the Targum says: "...
Teach us, our master, from when does the mitzvah of the Channukah lamp begin? Our rabbis taught – from when the sun sets until the majority of people are gone from the marketplace....
… it is written there “Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You…” (Melachim I 8:27) and here it is written “…the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.” (Sh...
"And the waters will came back and cover the chariot and the horsemen" (Exodus 14:26) And even Par'oh, according to Rabi Yehuda, as it says "the chariots of Phar'oh and his army" (...
The Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 392 makes a breathtaking claim about the two stone tablets that Moses received on Mount Sinai: they were not made from any earthly material. "The tablet...
The Talmud records some of the most intimate prayers ever spoken—personal confessions the great Sages whispered after their formal prayers were complete. According to Berakhot 17a,...
There are seven heavens stacked above the earth, each with a distinct name and function. Reish Lakish listed them: Vilon, Rakia, Shehakim, Zevul, Ma'on, Makhon, and Aravot. Vilon i...
The Talmud in Chagigah 12b asks a foundational question: what holds up the world? The answer, according to Rabbi Yosei, is a chain of impossible supports—each one resting on someth...
Four rabbis entered the Pardes (פרדס)—the orchard, a code word for the deepest levels of mystical knowledge. According to Chagigah 14b, only one came out whole. The four were Ben A...
Elisha ben Abuya—the rabbi the Talmud calls "Aher" (אחר), "the Other"—became a heretic because of something he saw in heaven. According to Chagigah 15a, the vision that broke his f...
After Elisha ben Abuya became a heretic, his student Rabbi Meir never stopped trying to bring him back. According to Chagigah 15b, the attempts were heartbreaking—and futile. Elish...
The Hebrew Bible makes one of its most radical claims in (Deuteronomy 30:12-14): "It is not in heaven... nor is it overseas... for the matter is extremely close to you, in your mou...
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...
Rabbi Yehuda said, "Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) before the Holy One, Blessed be He: One of wholly righteous people; and they are immediately writt...
Hiram, king of Tyre made seven artificial heavens placed on pillars of iron, first of glass, sun, moon and stars. Second of iron, with a lake of water in it; third of tin with prec...
A farmer once looked at his fields and made a calculation that seemed clever at the time. The Torah commands that a tenth of every harvest must be given as a tithe. The farmer deci...
Rabbi Hananya made a statement that puzzled his students: "Some people feed their parents badly and yet inherit Paradise. Others feed their parents well and yet inherit Gehinnom (t...
Two men stand before the heavenly court. Both honored their fathers. Both are judged. One goes to Paradise. The other to Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)....
F. 141a. R. Shimeon b. Yohai and son hid in a cavern for 13 years fearing Roman persecution. One da}f •they saw a fowler catching birds, who was successful only after a voice from ...
In time of drought the Rabbi was informed from Heaven to appeal to a merchant for intercession. He was 166— ashamed to call upon an apparently ignorant man but none the less did so...
Hiram, king of Tyre, was one of the most audacious men in all of scripture. God had given him wealth, beauty, and a lifespan that stretched across centuries — some sages say he liv...
King Monobaz of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism, opened his family's treasuries during a year of famine and distributed everything to the poor. His brothers and his father's family ...
The Talmud in tractate Kallah (5:1) tells the story of a man who inherited a large sum of money and faced a decision that would define the rest of his life. He could invest the mon...
Rabbi Perida had a student who was extraordinarily slow to learn. While other pupils grasped a teaching after hearing it once or twice, this student required something far more ext...
The Talmud (Jerusalem Talmud, Peah 1:1) presents two contrasting stories that illustrate a paradox: a person who treats their parents well can still end up in Gehinnom (the place o...
Rabbi Johanan was famous throughout the land of Israel for his extraordinary beauty. The Talmud in Berakhot (5b) describes him as radiating an almost supernatural light, and the sa...
Elazar ben Dordaya was a man consumed by desire. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 17a) records that he was so enslaved to his passions that he traveled across seven rivers to visit a parti...
The martyrdom of Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon is among the most harrowing passages in all of rabbinic literature. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 17b-18a) describes his execution with the k...
When the Romans decreed that teaching Torah was punishable by death, Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon did not stop. He gathered his students in the open, placed a Torah scroll in his lap...
There was once a man so wicked that the entire town avoided him. He cheated in business, spoke cruelty to strangers, and mocked the sages when they tried to rebuke him. Everyone ag...
A miraculous apple from Paradise — a single fruit carrying the fragrance and power of the Garden of Eden — is the subject of this tale, preserved in medieval Jewish and comparative...
The folk traditions of Israel contain many tales of encounters between ordinary Jews and the demons that inhabit the hidden corners of the world. The story known as "The Demon and ...
Rabbi Meir used to stop at the house of Judah the butcher whenever he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Judah's wife was a righteous woman who looked after the traveling sage with ...
A man hid his gold in a set of clay jars — the ancient equivalent of a safe deposit box — and the story of what happened to those jars became a parable about the fragility of earth...
The Talmud (Taanit 22a) tells of Elijah the prophet revealing to Rabbi Beroka which people in the marketplace were destined for the World to Come. Rabbi Beroka expected Elijah to p...
Rabbi Beroka was walking through the marketplace with the prophet Elijah — who appeared to him in disguise, as he often did to the great sages — when Beroka asked a question that b...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa lived in grinding poverty, but the treasures of Paradise were within his reach — literally. The Talmud (Taanit 24b-25a) records a series of miracles that occu...
Companion in Paradise. Taanit, f. 21b. Maase Buch No. 39. Ben Gorion II, p. 220, 354- cf. Bousset, Der ver- borg. Heilige, Archiv. f. Relig.Wiss. col. 21, p. iff. Conde Lucanor, ch...
Three chests were placed before a person who was told to choose one — and the story of that choice became a famous parable about the difference between appearance and reality. The ...
A star fell from heaven — and its fall marked the beginning of a corruption that would lead to the great Flood. The Midrash (Genesis Rabbah of Rabbi Moses HaDarshan, Midrash Abkhir...
