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In the village of Modin, a priest named Mattathias gathered his five sons and told them it was better to die for the laws of their country than to live in disgrace. When the king's...
After Judas Maccabeus fell in battle, everything he had fought for nearly collapsed. Josephus opens Book XIII of his Antiquities with a bleak picture: the lawless and the disloyal ...
When Trypho murdered his brother Jonathan, Simon, the last surviving son of Mattathias, took command. He was the eldest of the five brothers and the only one still alive. Josephus ...
John Hyrcanus escaped his father's assassination and seized control of Jerusalem before his treacherous brother-in-law could reach it. But the early years of his reign were brutal....
In 63 BCE, two brothers tore Judea apart. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, both sons of the Hasmonean queen Alexandra, fought each other for the throne. Hyrcanus was the elder and the hig...
The real power behind the Jewish throne in the first century BCE was not a Jew at all. Antipater, an Idumean whose family had converted to Judaism only a generation or two earlier,...
Julius Caesar did something remarkable for the Jews. In a series of decrees preserved by Josephus in his Antiquities (written c. 93 CE), the Roman dictator formally guaranteed Jewi...
Herod was twenty-five years old when his father Antipater handed him the governorship of Galilee. His first act was to hunt down a band of raiders led by a man named Hezekiah who h...
Herod returned from Rome with a crown but no kingdom. Antigonus, backed by the Parthians, controlled Jerusalem. It took Herod three years of brutal campaigning to claim what the Ro...
The moment Herod was dead, the nation exploded. Three separate revolts broke out across the country before his sons could even settle who inherited what. According to Josephus in A...
When Rome imposed a census on Judea in 6 CE, most Jews grudgingly complied. One man declared that paying taxes to Caesar was slavery, and slavery was a sin against God. According t...
Pontius Pilate moved his troops into Jerusalem at night and brought Roman military standards bearing Caesar's image into the holy city. Every previous governor had known better. Ac...
Agrippa did something no Jewish king had done in a generation: he made the people feel like they had a ruler who was actually one of them. According to Josephus in Antiquities XIX,...
A queen from Mesopotamia converted to Judaism, moved to Jerusalem, and saved the city from famine. Her name was Helena of Adiabene, and she was one of the most remarkable converts ...
In the decades before the Great Revolt, Judea descended into a spiral of bandits, assassins, false prophets, and Roman brutality that made the final catastrophe feel inevitable. Ac...
Josephus ends his twenty-volume history of the Jewish people with a list, a boast, and a confession. The list is of every high priest from Aaron to the destruction of the Temple. T...
For centuries, mystics have explored this idea, and one of the most profound expressions of it is the concept of the ten sefirot (the divine emanations). What exactly are they? Ima...
Why the different guises? The Hasidic master Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev explains that God does not change, but rather it is those who perceive God who are different. God appears t...
The answers? Well, they're as varied and beautiful as the stars in the night sky. Some say God dwells in the celestial realms, way up in the highest heaven, seated on the Kisei ha-...
It’s a question that’s haunted mystics and theologians for millennia. And the answer, as we find in Jewish tradition, is both breathtakingly beautiful and terrifyingly destructive....
Jewish tradition teaches that all of creation springs forth from the very Name of God, specifically the holiest Name: YHVH. The Zohar tells us that in the very beginning, God revea...
Jewish tradition actually grapples quite intensely with the idea of a God who experiences suffering, even to an unimaginable degree. It's a challenging concept, isn't it? How can a...
In Jewish mysticism, this presence is often understood through the concept of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). But here's something fascinating: it's not just one Shekhinah, bu...
It’s a question that might sound irreverent, but Jewish mystical tradition actually gives us a fascinating answer, one deeply intertwined with our own actions and the fate of the w...
That’s right. According to some mystical traditions, particularly within Kabbalah, the Temple was literally the place where God, the King, and His Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה), His Divine...
Jewish tradition has a powerful, even startling, way of expressing this idea, especially when talking about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It wasn't just bricks and mo...
The Jewish mystics had a powerful image for that kind of pain: the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, weeping. It’s a radical idea, isn’t it? God, or at least this aspect of God, expe...
What happens when even the Divine weeps? What happens when home is lost, not just for us, but for God, too? We often think of God as unchanging, eternal, beyond our human messiness...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of understanding that feeling: it's the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, in exile with us. Think of the Shekhinah as the feminine aspect of God, ...
It all starts, as many intense stories do, with a separation. Specifically, the separation of God and the Shekhinah (שכינה), God's Divine Presence, often seen as the feminine aspec...
Jewish tradition whispers of such a presence: the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה) is often described as the feminine aspect of God, a divine presence tha...
Our story today takes us to 16th-century Safed, a center of Jewish mysticism, and introduces us to Rabbi Abraham Berukhim, a man known for his profound connection to the Divine. Th...
Some stories tell us it all started with a division. A grand sorting. According to tradition, when God created the world, it wasn't a uniform, homogenous blob. No, no. It was divid...
This brings us to a little story, a fragment really, told by the great Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. You probably know him from his famous Sippurei Ma’asiyot, his collection of thirte...
The story of Rabbi Ishmael offers just such a glimpse, though it's woven with threads of immense suffering and ultimate acceptance. This story, "Rabbi Ishmael's Ascent," isn't just...
Jewish tradition paints a vivid picture of just such a place: a heavenly otzar, a treasury. But this isn't just any vault filled with gold; it's the Treasury of Merits, a repositor...
For the Jewish people, tradition answers with a resounding name: Michael. But it's not always a simple story of unwavering support. Our relationship with Michael, the archangel, is...
The Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, reportedly did just that. The story goes that on Rosh ha-Shanah – the Jewish New Year, a day of judgment and profound spiritual signifi...
Some traditions suggest there isn't just one Lilith, but two! Imagine this: It's Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, a day of atonement and intense prayer for the Jewish peopl...
Some say they're locked away in a book, a very special book called the Book of Raziel. Now, this isn't your ordinary paperback. According to tradition, this book was revealed to Ad...
One of my favorites involves nothing less than the Torah itself, envisioned as a radiant bride. Imagine this: the sixth day of Creation is wrapping up. God surveys everything He ha...
How can you possibly do both? That's the dilemma our ancestors faced after their return to Zion. The story goes that the people, overwhelmed by the demands of rebuilding, found the...
That’s the scene we’re stepping into today, a scene that plays out once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Our focus? The High Priest, his heart pounding, preparing to en...
The holiday of Sukkot, as we know, is based on the biblical verse, "You shall live in booths seven days" (Leviticus 23:42). We build these temporary dwellings, the sukkot (plural o...
Vital, as recounted in Sefer ha-Hezyonot, dreamed of a very unusual Simhat Torah, the joyous holiday that celebrates the completion of the annual Torah reading cycle. Imagine this:...
What's happening on high? Well, according to a beautiful passage in the Zohar (2:40b-41a), the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, God isn't just observing. God's hosting a cele...
You might be surprised. It’s not just about commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. According to some mystical traditions, Shavuot (the Festival of Weeks) is actually...
These aren't just any years; they're cosmic Shemittot. The word Shemittah might sound familiar – it's the same word used for the sabbatical year, when fields lie fallow, a time of ...
