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Leftovers are rarely a theological problem, but in the Pesach laws they become one. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:10) addresses what to do with any remnant of the lamb that ...
Some of the most famous images of Passover — the belted tunic, the shoes on the feet, the staff in the hand — were never meant to continue. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:11)...
One of the most striking interpretive moves in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan happens quietly on (Exodus 12:13). The verse states that the blood on the doorposts will be a sign for Israel,...
The law of unleavened bread contains one of the sharpest penalties in the Torah. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:15) says that anyone who eats leavened bread during the seven ...
Passover has two names. The night of deliverance is Pesach. The week that follows is Chag haMatzot — the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:17) preserv...
The laws of Passover refuse the distinction between insider and outsider. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:19) says that whoever eats leaven during the seven days will perish f...
The tool that saved Israel was the humblest plant in the garden. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:22) says that each household took a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the lamb's b...
The difference between the plain Hebrew and the Aramaic of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:23) is the insertion of the Memra — the Word of the Lord. In the Hebrew, God passes ...
The name of the Pesach offering is usually translated "the sacrifice of the passing over." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:27) renames it in a way that catches the heart. In t...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:29) opens up a corner of the Exodus story that few readers notice. The verse says the firstborn of Egypt died, from Pharaoh's heir down to the ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:30) describes Pharaoh rising in the night, and with him every one of his servants and every surviving Mizraee. The great cry goes up. And then ...
One of the most tender details in the Exodus is hidden in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:34). As Israel fled Mizraim, the people carried their unleavened dough on their heads...
The most famous number in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's account of the Exodus is seven. On (Exodus 12:37), as Israel moves from Pilusin (Pelusium) toward Succoth, one hundred thirty tho...
The first matzah was not baked in an oven. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:39) says that Israel divided the unleavened dough they had brought out of Mizraim — the same dough t...
One of the great numerical puzzles of the Torah is solved openly by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:40). The Hebrew says Israel lived in Mizraim for four hundred thirty years....
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 12:41) continues the chronological reconstruction begun the verse before. Thirty years passed between the Covenant Between the Pieces and the birt...
Of all the expansions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, few are as beautiful as the Four Nights passage on (Exodus 12:42). The Aramaic says there are four nights written in the Book of Me...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:3) records the speech Moses gave on the morning after the Exodus. The Aramaic phrase from the house of the bondage of slaves stacks up two word...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:5) lists the peoples whose land is being promised: the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The Aramaic keeps the old Torah ...
The obligation to tell the Pesach story to the next generation is compressed into a single sentence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 13:8). The Aramaic reads: "thou shalt instr...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 16:23) gives us the first explicit teaching of Sabbath cookery in the Torah, and the Targumist relays it with a domestic precision that would be a...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan opens one of the most astonishing passages in the entire exodus tradition. "Ye have seen what I did to the Mizraee; and how I bare you upon the clouds as...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan dates the great revelation with precision: "It was on the third day, on the sixth of the month, in the time of the morning, that on the mountain there we...
The harvest is in. The grapes are crushed. The wine has just begun to settle in its jars. The farmer stands over his abundance and feels the old pull of hesitation. Perhaps next we...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:15) sets the pilgrimage: The feast of unleavened cakes thou shalt keep. Seven days thou art to eat unleavened bread, as I have instructe...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:16) names two festivals without naming them by their later names: the feast of the harvest first-fruits of the work thou didst sow in th...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (Exodus 23:18) gives the Pesach offering a particular constraint: Sons of Israel My people, while there is leaven in your houses you may not immola...
The Torah closes the Tabernacle construction chapters with a quiet command. In the Tent of Meeting, outside the parochet that conceals the Ark, Aharon and his sons are to tend a la...
Once a year — only once — Aaron approached the golden incense altar with a different purpose. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the command that on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur,...
The Hebrew Torah commands Israel to keep the Sabbath. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds three words that change the flavor entirely: Israel shall keep the Sabbath "to perform the delight...
The renewed covenant included a reminder of the annual rhythm that would shape Jewish life forever. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, preserves the comma...
Of all the animals in the ancient Israelite household, the donkey occupied a strange, liminal place. It was not kosher, yet it was precious. It carried burdens, plowed fields, and ...
The Jewish year moves with the grain. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 34:22) marks two hinges of that turning wheel: the feast of weeks at the first of the wheat harvest, and the...
Three times a year, every Jewish man was commanded to leave his house, his fields, and his family and walk to Jerusalem. The obvious question — and the rabbis asked it often — was ...
The Passover sacrifice in the Temple had an exact choreography, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 34:25) preserves its two ironclad rules. First: you may not slaughter the korb...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Exodus 40:9) takes a small detail — anointing the tabernacle with the consecration oil — and reaches forward across centuries. Anoint the tent and everyt...
Here is a question only R. Isaac could ask without blushing. If the Torah is primarily a book of commandments, why does it open with (Genesis 1:1) — a narrative about cosmic creati...
We read in the book of Numbers that "all those counted were six hundred three thousand, five hundred and fifty" (Numbers 1:46). But numbers in the Torah are never just numbers, are...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. They found that very human feeling reflected in the Torah itself, specifically in the book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew. And they explore it in ...
He sees the very first verses of Genesis as a foreshadowing of the choices we all face. "The earth was emptiness (tohu vavohu)" – he says, that represents the actions of the wicked...
In fact, the ancient Rabbis dove deep into the very first verses of Genesis to understand their roles. The Book of Genesis (1:14) tells us, "God said: Let there be lights in the fi...
The sages of the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), those brilliant interpreters of Jewish texts, grappled with this very question. In Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rab...
We make them all the time – to loved ones, to ourselves, and, if we believe, God makes promises to us. But what happens when the very foundations of the world seem to shift? What t...
The ancient Rabbis certainly thought so! to a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, specifically section 42, wh...
The story of Jacob and Esau, and their mother Rebecca, is definitely one for the ages. It's a story ripe with sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, and a mother's desperate attempt...
Take the story of Jacob, disguised as Esau, receiving Isaac's blessing. It's a pivotal moment, full of deception and destiny. But let's zoom in on one specific detail: "And the hid...
Our verse for today comes from (Genesis 30:22): “God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her, and He opened her womb.” A simple verse. But like so much in Torah, it’s a doorway into ...
The book of Genesis tells us, almost in passing, "Jacob traveled to Sukot, and built him a house, and established booths [sukot] for his livestock. Therefore, he called the name of...
