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Hillel the Elder had eighty students. This number is repeated across multiple sources — Baba Batra (134a), Sukkah (28a), and Avot de Rabbi Nathan (chapters 14 and 29) — with a cons...
When Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan to scout the territory before the Israelite invasion, ten of them came back terrified. "We saw giants there," they reported. "T...
The Midrash on the Ten Commandments tells the story of a faithful woman whose devotion was tested beyond what most people could endure — and who emerged triumphant. A certain man w...
A man was accused of a crime he did not commit. He faced execution, disgrace, and the destruction of his family's name. His friend, knowing the truth — knowing the accused man was ...
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 ...
The birth of Ben Batira — or more precisely, the circumstances that led to his birth — is preserved in the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 7:13) as one of the stranger stories in rabbi...
A heretic challenged the sages with a question about God's justice toward the disabled. "If your God is good, why does He create people who are maimed — the blind, the deaf, the la...
A man hid his money in a hollow tree — and the story of what happened to that money became a parable about the cleverness of thieves and the greater cleverness of the righteous. Th...
Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Numbers, gives us a glimpse into this. It focuses on a seemingly small detail: how the menorah, the candelabrum o...
We find ourselves grappling with such questions in Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on the Book of Numbers. Specifically, we're diving into the ninth section,...
Today, we’re diving deep into one of the most fascinating and unsettling rituals described in the Torah: the ordeal of the sotah (סוטה), the woman suspected of adultery. The passag...
We're diving into the ritual surrounding the sotah, the woman suspected of adultery. Specifically, we're looking at (Numbers 5:16-17), which details the priest's actions in this de...
Take, for example, the strange and solemn ritual described in the Book of Numbers, chapter 5, concerning a woman suspected of infidelity. It’s a fascinating, and frankly unsettling...
And it’s why the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Bamidbar Rabbah 13, dwells on his name, his lineage, and his pivotal role. The text begins by asking a sim...
Even in the Bible, the order in which things are presented can tell a whole story. Take the story of the spies sent by Moses to scout out the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, bef...
It all starts in (Numbers 16:1): “Koraḥ, son of Yitzhar son of Kehat son of Levi, and Datan and Aviram, sons of Eliav, and On, son of Pelet, sons of Reuben, took…” Took what, you a...
to the story as told in Bamidbar Rabbah 20, a fascinating peek behind the curtain of this dramatic encounter. “Balak heard that Bilam had come,” the verse tells us. But Bamidbar Ra...
It's more than just history or geography. It’s woven into the very fabric of our spiritual DNA. Bamidbar Rabbah, a collection of Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic teachi...
It’s a question that’s captivated minds for millennia, and our sages of old certainly wrestled with it. The Rabbis, in Bereshit Rabbah, that treasure trove of early interpretations...
In the Torah, the word heḥel (הֵחֵל), meaning "began," is one of those words. It pops up in some pretty unsettling contexts. In Bereshit Rabbah 26, a classic collection of rabbinic...
That’s kind of what the ancient Rabbis were wrestling with when they looked at the story of Noah, specifically (Genesis 7:6): “And Noah was six hundred years old, and the flood was...
We find ourselves in the time of Rabbi Ḥiyya Rabba, a prominent sage. Someone brings him a zargun, a starling. The question? Is it kosher? Is it okay to eat according to Jewish law...
The scene: Jacob, after years of service to his less-than-honest uncle Laban, has finally made his escape with his wives, children, and flocks. But Laban pursues him, catching up o...
Take the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. We know Joseph, now a powerful Egyptian official, tests his brothers after years of separation. He orders his steward to fill th...
Kohelet Rabbah, the commentary on Ecclesiastes, gets it. It starts with the line "all matters are wearying." But it doesn't stop there with the doom and gloom. It actually dives in...
It all centers around a verse from (Ecclesiastes 12:3), a verse filled with cryptic imagery: "On the day that the guards of the house will tremble, the men of valor will be bent, t...
And the process, according to our tradition, is absolutely fascinating. : how do we arrive at these conclusions, these rulings that guide our lives? It’s a question that’s been pon...
to a fascinating exploration from Vayikra Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations on the Book of Leviticus. The verse in question is from (Psalm 50:23): "One who slaughter...
Specifically, we're looking at (Leviticus 23:11), which instructs us about waving the omer "before the Lord, for acceptance on your behalf; on the day after the sabbath the priest ...
There was an incident involving one of the prominent residents of Jerusalem, who said to his lad: ‘Go and bring me water.’ He was waiting for him on the rooftop. [The lad] came and...
“Our skin burns like an oven due to fear of famine” (Lamentations 5:10).“Our skin burns like an oven.” Two amora’im, one said: Like those sun-withered dates; and one said: Like an ...
“And in each and every province, any place where the word of the king and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews” (Esther 4:3).Is there great mourning and mino...
“Haman said: ‘Indeed, Queen Esther gave a feast and besides the king she did not bring anyone but me. And tomorrow too I am invited by her along with the king” (Esther 5:12).“Haman...
A bit like trying to imagine the edge of the universe. Jewish tradition grapples with these kinds of mind-bending questions all the time, especially when we talk about the creation...
This is precisely the puzzle posed in The Midrash of Philo. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking exploration of the early chapters of Genesis, attributed to Philo of Alexandria, a J...
There’s a fascinating little corner of Jewish thought that suggests a truly different picture of those early days. It’s tucked away in the Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpr...
The question is simple: Why does the creation of animals and flying creatures get mentioned again after we already had the whole six-day creation story in Genesis 1? It seems a bit...
Even Adam, the first human, apparently felt that way. The Torah tells us that God paraded all the animals before Adam (Genesis 2:19-20). Adam named them, categorizing them, underst...
Philosophers have scratched their heads, trying to unravel the mystery of slumber. But you know, sometimes the answers are closer than we think. Our own tradition, through the wisd...
That’s the question posed in the ancient text known as The Midrash of Philo, specifically in fragment 22. A seemingly simple question, but one that unlocks a whole world of underst...
There's a fascinating little puzzle tucked away in the Book of Genesis, specifically (Genesis 3:3). It's a tiny addition to God's command, seemingly insignificant, but it opens up ...
a passage that offers a rather… pointed perspective. The Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpretations attributed to Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher from the 1st cent...
Especially when we’re talking about THE CREATOR of the universe! to a tiny, but profound, little corner of Jewish thought to explore this. We're going to look at a question posed i...
That feeling isn't exactly new. to a fascinating interpretation of a very famous moment: God calling out to Adam after he ate from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. We a...
Philo, a Jewish philosopher who lived in Egypt during the Roman era, tried to harmonize Greek philosophy with Jewish scripture. The text we're looking at here – let's call it Midra...
That internal struggle... it's been a topic of contemplation for millennia. And interestingly, sometimes it's been explored through the lens of gender. Now, I know what you might b...
The Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpretations and expansions on the Hebrew Bible attributed to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, offers a fascinating perspective....
But why? What was the point of this divine bouncer? That's the question the Midrash of Philo 24 wrestles with. Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), by the way, is a method o...
