588 texts · Page 3 of 13
It wasn't just Babylon against Israel. Other Arabic tribes, like the Palmyrenes, openly showed their hostility, even providing Nebuchadnezzar with a massive force of eighty thousan...
Now, they’re celebrating a miraculous deliverance. The air is thick with gratitude, with disbelief, with pure, unadulterated joy. As Mordecai, the hero of the hour, rode through th...
Flavius Josephus, in his Against Apion, grapples with precisely this when he contrasts the historical record of the Jews with that of the Greeks. He points out that the Greeks them...
We often hear about God's word, God's actions... but what about God's beauty? It's a question that takes us deep into the heart of Jewish mystical thought. Forget the image of a ce...
We often think of heaven as a visual paradise, shimmering light and breathtaking vistas. But what about the auditory experience? Jewish tradition paints a picture of a heaven const...
Jewish tradition paints a breathtaking picture of just such a place: a heavenly palace known as the Bird's Nest. This isn't just any palace; it's a secret place, holding within it ...
Eternal bliss, unimaginable beauty... who in their right mind would say no? Well, Jewish tradition tells us about righteous rabbis who did just that, refusing the heavenly reward o...
The way a river delta mirrors the branches of a tree? The way a family dynamic can mirror a national one? Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, suggests this isn't just a coinci...
And it's a question that Baal HaSulam, in his preface to the Zohar, tackles head-on. He starts with something we all instinctively know: We can't imagine what we can't sense. Makes...
And when we talk about the Zohar, that foundational text of Jewish mysticism, we need to talk about the commentaries that help us understand it. One of the most important is by Baa...
And these lights? Well, they're not all created equal, nor do they enter in the order you might expect. Here's the thing: when we're discussing the vessels – the containers that ho...
In Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish mystical tradition, we find a fascinating concept about how the spiritual world works – and how things need to be in their proper order for true ful...
In Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish mystical tradition, this tension isn't just a human experience, it's a cosmic drama playing out within the very structure of reality. And like any g...
We're going to delve into a fascinating concept, drawing from the introduction to the Sulam Commentary. What happens when two powerful forces clash, and how can we bring them into ...
That's a feeling the Kabbalists knew well, and it's at the heart of what we're going to explore today. Specifically, we're diving into the idea of the "feminine waters" (mayin nukv...
That feeling is at the heart of a profound idea in Kabbalah. We're diving into the Sulam Commentary, specifically section 52, which tackles a complex, yet beautiful concept: how se...
Jewish mysticism has a way of describing that feeling, even on a cosmic scale. We've been exploring the intricate landscape of the Sulam commentary, a vital guide to understanding ...
Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, offers a mind-bending explanation involving these intricate structures called partzuf (a divine configuration)im (the divine configurations...
We’ve touched on the earlier, more…ethereal stuff. But how did things get organized, get defined, so to speak? Well, buckle up, because we’re diving into the nitty-gritty of cosmic...
We often think of prayer as something we do, a connection we forge with the Divine. But what if I told you that our prayers, our songs, our moments of pure, unadulterated praise ac...
The text paints a picture of unparalleled majesty, asking, "Who is like unto our King among all the lofty ones… Who is like our Maker? Who is like unto the Lord our God?" It's a rh...
There's this text, Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati – one of the key writings describing mystical ascents through the heavenly realms. It's all about experiencing the divin...
The Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, one of the central texts of the Heikhalot literature, offers us just such a glimpse, a breathtaking vision of King David's ascent to t...
The story centers on Rabbi Ishmael. He wasn't just any rabbi; he was a key figure in these mystical circles. He recounts a powerful experience of standing "before the throne of glo...
Jewish mystical tradition offers glimpses, tantalizing hints of the unimaginable grandeur and power at the heart of creation. Today, let's take a peek inside. We’re going to delve ...
And it's filled with beings so dazzling, so utterly beyond our comprehension, that even whispering their names can ignite the very air around us. We're diving today into a passage ...
The ancient mystical text, Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati – one of the key works of the Heikhalot literature, focused on heavenly ascent – gives us a glimpse, or rather, ...
The ancient mystical text, Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, which translates roughly to "The Greater Palaces," gives us a peek behind the curtain, into the celestial realm...
It's a powerful, intimate glimpse into the relationship between us and the Divine. The text imagines God saying, "For I have no pleasure in all My world which I have created like i...
The ancient mystics of the Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) texts, specifically here in Heikhalot Rabbati 13, believed there was. They weren't shy about going straight to the sourc...
Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a fascinating text from the Heikhalot literature – a collection of Jewish mystical writings that explore heavenly palaces and divine encou...
Merkabah (מרכבה) literally means "chariot" in Hebrew, and in this context, it refers to the divine chariot throne as described in the Book of Ezekiel. But it’s also about the soul’...
In the Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, an angel is granted power and special access to the highest heaven. A horn blasts from beyond the sky, a signal, and even the highe...
Then you've brushed up against the world of the Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) literature, the mystical ascent to God's throne room. And within that, we find passages like this o...
The Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a text within the Heikhalot literature – those mystical explorations of heavenly palaces and divine encounters – gives us a glimpse in...
These are the ten emanations of God in Kabbalistic thought, the ten attributes through which the Divine reveals itself to the world. But here's a question that might pop into your ...
Jewish tradition has some pretty strong feelings about that, especially when it comes to something as simple as eating. Think about biting into a juicy piece of fruit. It's delicio...
We know the Torah tells us, right at the beginning in (Genesis 1:11), that the earth should bring forth "fruit trees producing fruit according to its kind." Simple enough. But what...
He describes the process of zivug, often translated as "union" or "coupling," but in Kabbalah, it's far more than just a simple coming-together. It’s the engine of creation itself....
It might sound strange, but Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, often speaks of the Sephirot – the emanations of God – in terms that mirror human development: gestation, birth, nursing, an...
There’s far more to it than meets the eye. The Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, in his work Asarah Perakim, peels back the layers of meaning, revealing a profound connection be...
In the mystical text Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot ("Knowledge of Understanding"), the Soul itself expresses this very feeling. It's a remarkably human sentiment, coming from a source ...
That’s kind of what we're diving into today, inspired by a tiny but powerful passage from Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, a work that explores profound spiritual and philosophical quest...
The Intellect, as the text refers to it, poses a compelling idea: God, blessed be He, could have created everything and everyone in utter, absolute completeness. Not only could He ...
We're going to be looking at a passage from Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, a work that explores profound questions about creation, the soul, and our purpose in the world. The text we'r...
Jewish mystical thought, especially in texts like Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, grapples with this all the time. In Da'at Tevunot 35, the Soul asks a seemingly simple, yet profound qu...
It's pointing us toward a deeper truth. The text suggests that everything—absolutely everything—is connected to the revelation of God's Oneness, His Yichud. The text says that the ...
(Deuteronomy 6:4). But what does that "One" really encompass? In Da'at (Knowledge) Tevunot, a profound work of Jewish thought, the concept of God's Singularity, or Yichud, is explo...
