215 myths · Page 1 of 8
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Midrash from across Jewish tradition.
215 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines midrash, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
The Hebrew alphabet was etched across the garment, black fire on white fire. Adam saw from one end of the world to the other by it, until it was hidden away.
The Torah gives the Akedah nineteen quiet verses. The Rabbis filled the silence with angel tears, Satan in the road, and a son who volunteered to die.
A darkness fell on Egypt so thick a man could touch it, pinning bodies where it found them while Israel walked free with light.
There were two of them on the fifth day, male and female, circling slow as drifting continents. God looked ahead at their young and saw mountains with teeth.
At midnight Israel stayed inside with lamb blood and circumcision as their shield while Pharaoh ran through Egypt begging Moses to let them go.
The angels voted. Love said yes, Truth and Peace said no. God overruled them, threw Truth to the ground, and created humanity anyway.
A sacred staff, seven years in a pit, and forty years with sheep turned Moses from fugitive prince into the shepherd who could face the bush.
God sent quail so low that no one had to climb, but the meat became a test of craving, and some died with it still in their teeth.
Fiery serpents tore through the camp, so Moses raised a bronze serpent on a pole and told the bitten to lift their eyes and live.
Seventy slips said elder, two were blank, and the lottery never reached Eldad and Medad. So the spirit found the two men where they stood.
Seven hundred thousand people beat on the ark's door and drowned in the rain. One giant was already on the roof, fed through a hole in the pitch.
At Sinai, Israel said na'aseh v'nishma, doing before hearing, and heaven answered with crowns, terror, and a mountain overhead.
Before sky, sea, or soil, the Torah burned in black fire on white fire as God held the blueprint that would become the world.
At Sinai the mountain burned, angels crowded the sky, and God's voice struck Israel dead before raising them to hear again.
Before creation began, every letter of the Hebrew alphabet stepped forward to plead its case for why the world should begin with it.
The looms ran for days and the wool came off the color of the sky just before dark. Korah ran the cloth through his fingers. He knew what one thread was worth.
The animals went to drink and found stone. Moses was away from the camp, mourning his sister. He wept six hours before the thirsty crowd came for him.
The priests carry the Ark to the flooded Jordan and stop at the edge. The river will not part until their feet touch the water first.
Seven nations shut themselves inside Jericho because whoever held it held the country. Israel walked around it for six days and said nothing.
Jericho fell without a siege, so its spoils were sacred. One man decided otherwise, buried them in his tent floor, and thirty-six men died at Ai.
He was threshing wheat in a winepress so Midian would not smell the food. That is where the angel found him and called him a mighty warrior.
A man consecrated to God kills a lion with his bare hands, returns to find bees nesting in the corpse, and turns the secret into a wedding bet.
Sheilah put her case to every sage in Israel and not one could answer her. God said afterward that he had shut their mouths himself.
Barak would not face nine hundred iron chariots unless Deborah came with him. She came, and a hailstorm sank the chariots in the Kishon mud.
Samuel heard his name in the sanctuary night and ran to Eli three times before the old priest taught him how to answer God.
David chose five stones at the brook, but the midrash makes the whole created world hurry into his hand before Goliath fell.
No one ever saw a handsbreadth of palm or heel uncovered on a king of Saul's line, Michal told him. David answered with the word she had chosen.
The angel had to be back in heaven before sunrise or the morning song could not start. Jacob had him by the throat and a question about Esau.
The Ark lurched on the road to Jerusalem. Uzzah reached to save it, and David learned that holy things do not survive by instinct.
At Gibeon, God told the young king to ask for anything. Solomon could have named riches or long life. He asked for an understanding heart instead.
