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That’s the heart of bikkurim (בִּכּוּרִים), the first fruits offering, and Sifrei Devarim sheds light on its beautiful simplicity. The passage from Sifrei Devarim 297 opens with a ...
It wasn't just about plowing and planting. It was a system of sacred sharing, a way of life woven into the very fabric of their calendar. We're going to dive into a little corner o...
TEN MIRACLES WERE WROUGHT FOR OUR FATHERS IN JERUSALEM:1The current editions read ‘in the Temple’. This is an error, because the list of miracles wrought in the Temple is given lat...
Genesis 29 tells the story of Jacob arriving in Haran, meeting Rachel at a well, and being deceived by Laban into marrying Leah first. The Targum Jonathan injects dialogue, backsto...
When Moses and Aaron first confronted Pharaoh and demanded he release Israel, the Hebrew Bible records Pharaoh's defiant reply: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?" (Ex...
The Targum Jonathan on Exodus 8 contains one of the most remarkable theological additions in all of ancient Aramaic literature: the reason Moses personally refused to bring the pla...
The Passover story everyone knows has God striking down the Egyptian firstborn. The Targum Jonathan's version of (Exodus 12) is almost unrecognizably more detailed, packed with num...
The laws of (Exodus 23) cover justice, festivals, and the conquest of Canaan. The Targum Jonathan on this chapter adds moral psychology, legal specifics, and one of the most striki...
The second set of tablets in (Exodus 34:1-35) carries a weight the first set never had. These were carved by human hands, not divine ones. But the Targum Jonathan adds something to...
Leviticus 23 lists every festival on the Jewish calendar. The Targum Jonathan transforms it from a schedule into an instruction manual, adding measurements, procedures, and theolog...
The Hebrew Bible mentions a cloud over the Tabernacle. The Targum Jonathan turns it into a sentient navigation system—a pillar of divine fire and glory that dictated every movement...
The Targum's version of (Numbers 28) transforms a dry sacrificial calendar into a theology of continuous atonement. Where the Torah simply lists the daily offerings, the Targum exp...
The shofar on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) was not just a call to repentance. According to the Targum's version of (Numbers 29), the trumpets served a cosmic combat function...
The Targum transforms the Torah's bare itinerary of Israel's wilderness journeys in (Numbers 33) into an annotated guide of miracles and disasters. Every campsite gets a story, a n...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 16) transforms the three pilgrimage festivals into richly detailed celebrations. The Hebrew describes Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot (the Festiva...
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...
Teach us, oh teacher – if one has an argument with their friend, how shall they attain atonement on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)? This is what our Rabbis taught: transgression...
The judgment of the wicked in Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death) lasts twelve months, as it says “And it shall be from new moon to new moon…” (Yeshayahu 66:...
The Flood was all of twelve months,1R. Eliyahu from Vilna explains that according to Seder Olam a year about which no details are given is a simple, regular year of 354 days follow...
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation. And thou shalt put therein the ark of ...
"And the Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year..." (Numbers 1:1).1Guggen...
Chapter 10 “And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that th...
"This month shall be for you." It shall be turned over to you. R. Yehoshua b. Levi said, "It's like a king who had a horologue. When he looked at it, he would know what time of day...
Rabi Pinchas and Rabi Chilkiyah said in the name of Rabi Simon: the ministering angels gathered to Hashem and said before Him: Master of the world, when is the beginning of the yea...
Another Explanation "And first born of your children you shall redeem" (Exodus 13:13) Where [is this law sourced:] If his father did not redeem him, he should redeem himself. [We a...
Parashat Masei These are the journeys of the children of Israel. The Lord said to Moses, "Write down the journeys that the Israelites have taken in the wilderness, so that they may...
The Hebrew Bible says God will "pass through" Egypt on the night of the Passover (Exodus 12:12). Targum Onkelos changes this to God will "become revealed in" Egypt. God does not tr...
"The Secret of the Intercalation: On the adjustment of festivals and leap years. In the Talmud: Abba, the father of Rabbi Shmuel, said to Shmuel, 'Does the master know this matter ...
(7) (Fol. 16) MISHNAH (the earliest code of rabbinic law): At four periods in each year the world is judged; on Passover, in respect to the growth of grain; on Pentecost, in respec...
(23) (Fol. 19) On the twenty-eighth of Adar, the good news came to the Jews that they need no longer abstain from studying the Law, for the king [of Syria had earlier] issued a dec...
Hananya, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, was a respected scholar living in Babylon. And one day he made a decision that nearly split the Jewish world in two. He decided to set the cale...
Rosh Hashanah is not only about apples and honey. In the talmudic imagination, it is the day when three great books are opened in heaven, and every soul is sorted. Ein Yaakov, Rabb...
At the most joyful festival in the Jewish year — the Simchat Beit HaShoevah, the Rejoicing of the House of the Water Drawing, held on the nights of Sukkot — the Sages did things yo...
During the nights of Sukkot, the Second Temple in Jerusalem lit up like nothing the world had ever seen. In the Court of the Women stood four giant golden lamp-stands, each crowned...
The Roman-appointed Jewish king Agrippa II, who reigned over parts of Judea in the first century CE, once tried to count the male population of Israel. Because a direct census of I...
Although the reading of the Book of Esther — the Megillah — on Purim is not commanded anywhere in the Pentateuch, the Rabbis teach that it is binding on us and on every generation ...
A short, chilling ma'aseh from the rabbinic tradition, preserved as exemplum no. 73 in Moses Gaster's 1924 collection The Exempla of the Rabbis, makes its point in a handful of sen...
Hananiah, the nephew of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah, was living in Babylonia in the second century CE when he began doing something the Sages in the Land of Israel could not toler...
Simeon ben Kamhith was serving as High Priest. He had walked with a foreign king, and in the course of the conversation a drop of spittle from the king's mouth touched Simeon's gar...
There was a man who lived in the Greek city of Laodicea, and he had a rule he followed every week of his life. Whenever he found some particularly fine food in the market — the bes...
When Alexander of Macedon marched east, the Samaritans — called in the Talmud the Kutim — saw a political opening. They sent word to Alexander asking him to destroy the Temple in J...
Three men were traveling together through a lonely country. As Friday afternoon wore on, one of them stopped. "The sun is setting," he said. "I will not travel on Shabbat. I will s...
The rabbis counted the wounds and found that five had opened on the seventeenth of Tammuz and five more on the ninth of Av, the two fast days that frame the Three Weeks of summer m...
For seven days before Yom Kippur, the high priest lived as if rehearsing for a wedding he could not afford to fumble. Oxen, rams, and lambs were paraded past him one by one so that...
On the ninth of Av, the blackest day on the Jewish calendar, the normal pleasures drop away one by one. No eating. No drinking. No anointing with oil. No leather shoes on the feet....
Jews have always taken dreams seriously. The Talmud devotes pages to their meaning. But not every dream comes with an interpretation, and not every dreamer has a Joseph nearby to d...
Three times a year, the Torah commanded, every Jewish man should make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the festivals (Deuteronomy 16:16). Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot drew tens of th...
The month of Elul, in Jewish tradition, is the month of return. The shofar is blown every morning in synagogues around the world, and propitiatory prayers — selichot — are recited ...
