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Sometimes, they're more than just commandments; they're glimpses into a cosmic battle between good and… well, not-so-good. to a fascinating, and slightly strange, passage from Tikk...
When God told Abraham, "Go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), He was deliberately vague. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads this vagueness as a divine instructi...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on Parshat Vayera (Genesis 18:1) with a puzzle: the Torah says "God appeared to him," using only the pronoun "him" instead of...
Sarah is the only woman in the entire Torah whose age at death is recorded. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev asks why, and his answer reveals something stunning about what it mean...
"These are the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham; Abraham begot Isaac" (Genesis 25:19). The repetition seems redundant. If Isaac is the son of Abraham, we know Abraham begot...
"Jacob left Beer Sheva" (Genesis 28:10). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev connects this verse to a surprising topic: Chanukah. The word Chanukah (חנוכה) derives from chinukh (חנוך...
"I have remained a stranger at Laban's" (Genesis 32:5). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reports his father's brilliant reading of Jacob's message to Esau. The Hebrew word garti (...
"Jacob settled in the land where his father sojourned" (Genesis 37:1). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev opens his commentary on the Joseph story by explaining why Jacob lived in a...
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev addresses a question that Nachmanides raised about Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream: if Joseph predicted seven years of famine but the f...
The confrontation between Judah and Joseph in Egypt was not simply a family dispute. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev reads it as a cosmic collision between two forms of kingship....
"He blessed them on that day, saying: may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh" (Genesis 48:20). Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev uses Jacob's blessing to explain a peculiar tea...
God's command to Abraham—"Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and your father's house" (Genesis 12:1)—reads like travel instructions. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, in his comm...
The opening of Parashat Vayera—"And God appeared to him at the terebinths of Mamre" (Genesis 18:1)—seems straightforward. Abraham is sitting at his tent, and God appears. But Rebbe...
"And Sarah's lifetime was one hundred years and twenty years and seven years" (Genesis 23:1). Rashi offers his famous comment: at one hundred she was like twenty (free from sin), a...
"These are the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham" (Genesis 25:19). Rashi comments simply: "these are Jacob and Esau, who are discussed in the portion." But Rebbe Elimelech o...
"And Jacob sent messengers ahead of him" (Genesis 32:4). On the surface, Jacob is preparing to meet his brother Esau. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, reading Parashat Vayishlach, sees...
"And Jacob settled in the land where his father dwelled" (Genesis 37:1). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk opens his commentary on Parashat Vayeshev not with Joseph's coat or his brother...
"After two years' time, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile" (Genesis 41:1). Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, in Parashat Miketz, turns Pharaoh's dream into a warning abou...
"And Judah approached him" (Genesis 44:18). The verse says Judah "approached him"—but does not specify whom. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk takes the ambiguity and runs with it: the t...
Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk opens his teaching on Parashat Vayechi with a striking image from the Talmud (Shabbat 78b): a person who has "not yet repaid" their debt. Every human be...
The narrative frame of Sefer Raziel HaMalakh traces an extraordinary chain of transmission—a single book passed from hand to hand across the entire span of biblical history, each r...
Happy is the Jew, the Kabbalists say, who can prepare for Shabbat a complete set of garments that he wears only then. A coat, a belt, a pair of shoes, a hat — all different from th...
The Jewish calendar marks three pilgrimage festivals and twelve new moons. The Kitzur ShLaH explains that the three festivals correspond to the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, an...
A Kabbalistic instruction for the blessing of the new moon — Kiddush Levanah — arranges the worshiper's body and words like a careful spell. The mystic is to meditate on the initia...
Jewish tradition has a powerful way of visualizing that feeling, especially when it comes to exile and redemption. It involves the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). The Shekhinah (ש...
The Torah lists the patriarchs in a specific order: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In (Exodus 3:6), God introduces Himself to Moses at the burning bush as "the God of your father, the ...
Rabbi Yitzchak raised a sharp astronomical objection to a proposed method of calculating the calendar. If you followed a certain interpretation, he argued, the moon would already b...
(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...
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 debate over where the Israelites placed the Passover blood continues in the Mekhilta, and Rabbi Nathan and Rabbi Yitzchak stake out dramatically different positions — each reve...
Rabbi Yitzchak enters the debate about burning Passover leftovers with yet another angle of attack, proving the same conclusion through a different logical comparison. His argument...
When God said "And I shall see the blood" regarding the Passover in Egypt, the Mekhilta offers a stunning alternative reading. The "blood" God would see was not the blood of the Pa...
Thus do you find with the forefathers, that they deported themselves with circumspection (in this regard), viz.: (Genesis 22:3) "And Abraham arose early in the morning," (Ibid. 28:...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, turns to one of the most severe prophecies in the Hebrew Bible: the destruction of Esau's descendants. The prophet Obadiah declares: ...
The Mekhilta traces one of the most elegant patterns in the Torah — a divine promise that spans decades before its fulfillment. The verse states (Genesis 21:1): "And the Lord did f...
The Mekhilta, the tannaitic midrash on Exodus, takes up a question about the Israelites' first stop after leaving Egypt: a place called Succoth. "And they traveled from Rameses to ...
When the Israelites finally left Egypt, they did not leave empty-handed. The Torah describes them departing with "flocks and herds, a great crush of cattle" — a staggering processi...
Two verses in the Torah appear to contradict each other about how long the Israelites were connected to Egypt. One verse states: "And the habitation of the children of Israel in th...
Rebbi (Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) noticed the same numerical tension between two biblical verses about the duration of Israel's time in Egypt. One says "they shall serve them and they s...
"And the habitation of the children of Israel in Egypt and in other lands was four hundred and thirty years." This is one of the verses that they (the seventy-two elders changed) i...
(Exodus 12:41) "and it was at the end of four hundred and thirty years": We are hereby apprised that when the time arrived, the L–rd did not delay them for one moment. On the fifte...
R. Eliezer says: On it they were redeemed; but they are destined to be redeemed only on Tishrei, as it is written (Psalms 81:4) "Blow the shofar (of redemption) on the month (of Ti...
Rabbi Yitzchak posed a sharp question about what appeared to be a redundant verse. The Torah states that a toshav (resident alien) and a sachir (hired worker) may not eat of the Pa...
Once, the disciples spent a Sabbath in Yavneh, R. Yehoshua not among them. When they returned to him he asked them: "What novelty did you hear in Yavneh?" They answered: "After you...
The name of Yitzchak was not changed, for he was thus (originally) called by the Holy One Blessed be He. There are three who were named by the Holy One Blessed be He—Yitzchak, Shlo...
Rabbi Nathan noticed something striking in the Torah's language about the Exodus. The text uses two verbs — "who brought up" and "who brought" — when describing God's act of taking...
Rabbi Yitzchak disagreed with Rabbi Yoshiyah's reading of (Exodus 13:3), "and chametz shall not be eaten." He argued that the passive phrasing was not needed to equate the feeder w...
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah, one of the most prominent Tannaitic sages, made a bold claim about why God chose to liberate Israel from Egypt. It was not because of anything the enslave...
