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The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, speaks to just that feeling, issuing a powerful call to awaken and protect something precious. Imagine a world wh...
The mystical tradition of Kabbalah is all about finding those secrets, and the Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a companion to the Zohar, is packed with them.Yes, a sword! The te...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a later part of the Zohar, one of the central works of Kabbalah, hints at something truly profound about the Torah's essence. It speaks of a ...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Zohar, dives deep into this very idea, using the image of "husks" – kelipot (the shells of impurity) in Hebrew –...
The mystics understood that feeling deeply. They saw it as a reflection of something profound happening in the spiritual realms, a cosmic ebb and flow of souls and divine presence....
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, offers a breathtaking image. It begins with a single word: yasis. The text doesn't elaborate much on the word its...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Zohar, delves into just that kind of passionate exchange between the Divine and the Shekhinah, the feminine aspe...
To a fascinating passage from the Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, specifically Tikkun 289, where the human eye becomes a microcosm of the divine. The Tikkunei Zohar, a later exp...
The image is vivid: a rose, white and red, drawing energy from both the right and left. The white, the Zohar tells us in Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 290, symbolizes the clari...
Let’s look at one that’s always intrigued me: “Your neck is an ivory tower” from the Song of Songs (7:4). Sounds poetic, sure, but what does it mean? Well, the Tikkunei (spiritual ...
To a fascinating passage from Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 291 and see what secrets we can unlock. The passage begins with a seemingly simple phrase: "Your neck." But in the m...
The Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah, offers a breathtaking glimpse into just that, specifically focusing on the Divine Feminine, the Matronita. The pa...
It’s a question that the mystical tradition of Judaism, particularly the Zohar, has pondered for centuries. And in Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar 291, we find a fascinating, alm...
"And these are the names of the children of Israel" (Exodus 1:1). The Torah lists the twelve tribes again, even though they were already named in Genesis. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Be...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Va'era with a question about the nature of prophecy. God tells Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jac...
"You will prostrate yourselves from a distance" (Exodus 24:1). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this verse not as a physical instruction about how far to stand from Mount Si...
"They shall take for Me a contribution" (Exodus 25:2). The first commandment God gave after the revelation at Sinai was to build Him a home. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev finds...
"When you take a census of the Children of Israel, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for his soul" (Exodus 30:12). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this as God offering the J...
"And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt" (Exodus 1:1). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk opens his commentary on Parashat Shemot with a strange claim: a pers...
"And God spoke to Moses" (Exodus 6:2). The Hebrew word for "spoke" (vayedaber) implies harshness, while "said" (vayomer) implies gentleness. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk uses this g...
Harba de-Moshe (חרבא דמשה), the Sword of Moses, is one of the most important Jewish theurgic texts from the Geonic period. First published by Moses Gaster in 1896 from a unique man...
The transmission narrative in Harba de-Moshe (the Sword of Moses) is one of the most elaborate chains of divine authority in all of Jewish literature. It traces a path from God to ...
The heart of Harba de-Moshe (the Sword of Moses) is its catalog of divine names—and the greatest of these is the Great Name, composed of 70 component names. The number 70 is not ar...
The ninth of Maimonides' Thirteen Principles says the Torah will never be changed. The Holy One will not alter His law, nor replace Moses' law with any other. Malachi himself seale...
A Kabbalistic meditation preserved in Kitzur Shnei Luchot ha-Berit teaches that the 613 commandments of the Torah form a covenant between the Holy One, blessed be He, and Israel — ...
(Exodus 12:1) "And the L–rd spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying": I might think that both Aaron and Moses were being addressed; it is, therefore, written (Exod...
When God told Moses in (Exodus 7:1), "See, I have made you an overlord to Pharaoh," a question immediately arose in the minds of the ancient rabbis. The verse seems to single out M...
The Torah speaks "to Moses and to Aaron" — in that order. Moses first, Aaron second. A natural reading would assume this reflects a hierarchy: Moses is the greater, Aaron the lesse...
(Exodus 12:1) "in the land of Egypt":(He spoke to them) outside the city. But perhaps in the city itself? (This cannot be, for it is written (Exodus 9:29) "When I leave the city" (...
R. Yochanan said: Jonah went (on that voyage) only to cast himself into the sea, as it is written (Jonah 1:12) "And he said to them: Lift me up and cast me into the sea." All this ...
(Exodus 12:1) "saying": Go and say it to them immediately. These are the words of R. Yishmael. As it is written (Exodus 34:34) "And he went out and spoke to the children of Israel ...
Rabbi Akiva found a hidden message in a single word from (Exodus 12:1) — the word "saying." When God spoke to Moses, the instruction included "saying," which Akiva interpreted as a...
R. Shimon b. Azzai said: I do not come to detract from my master's words, but to add to them, viz.: Not to Moses alone did He speak in the merit of Israel, but to all of the prophe...
Thus do you find with Baruch the soon of Neriah, who complained before the L–rd, (Ibid. 45:3) "You (Baruch) say: Woe unto me, the L–rd has added grief to my pain!" (You say:) Why a...
(Exodus 12:2) records God's instruction to Moses: "This month shall be to you the beginning of months." It is the very first commandment given to Israel as a nation, even before th...
Rabbi Akiva taught that there were three things Moses could not visualize on his own, no matter how great his prophetic power. God had to physically point them out to him. The firs...
Rabbi Yoshiyah raised a question that touches the very structure of the Jewish calendar: who has the authority to add an extra month to the year? The Hebrew calendar is lunar, and ...
The Torah commands regarding the Passover lamb: "On the tenth day of this month, they shall take" (Exodus 12:3). The Mekhilta zeroes in on one seemingly minor word in this verse, t...
"shall you take": What is the intent of this? (i.e., it seems redundant.) It is written (Devarim 16:2) "And you shall slaughter the Pesach (Passover) for the L–rd your G–d, sheep a...
R. Yonathan says: sheep for the Pesach (Passover) and cattle for the chagigah. You say this, but perhaps (the meaning is) both for the Pesach? And how would I understand (Exodus 12...
R. Eliezer says: Sheep for the Pesach (Passover) and cattle for the chagigah. You say this, but perhaps both are for the Pesach? And how would I understand "an unblemished lamb, et...
(Exodus 12:6) "And it shall be to you for a keeping": Why does the taking of the Pesach (Passover) precede its slaughtering by four days? R. Matia b. Charash says: It is written (E...
The Mekhilta makes a striking claim about the moral character of the Israelites in Egypt: they were not guilty of sexual immorality. The proof comes from an unexpected source — a v...
One of the most remarkable claims in rabbinic tradition is that the Israelites preserved their identity throughout centuries of Egyptian bondage by refusing to change their names. ...
The Mekhilta raises a question that cuts to the heart of the Passover story: why did God command the Israelites to select the Passover lamb four full days before slaughtering it? W...
R. Yehudah b. Betheira says: It is written (Exodus 6:9) "And they would not hearken to Moses (as to G–d's delivering them), for shortness of spirit, etc." Now is there anyone who i...
Moses told the Israelites to take a lamb for the Passover offering, and they were terrified. The Mekhilta preserves their fearful protest: "Will we slaughter the abomination of Egy...
The Mekhilta uncovers a contradiction in the Torah's timeline that forces a radical rethinking of when the Passover sacrifice actually happened. Deuteronomy commands, "There shall ...
