108 myths · Page 2 of 4
Levi was born at the new moon of the first month. Long before Sinai, his father Jacob dressed him in priestly garments and ordained him in a field.
Jacob rebuked his sons for the slaughter at Shechem. A heavenly record reached a different verdict. Both accounts survived.
Isaac's blind eyes clear just long enough to see Jacob's sons, and his right hand reaches for Levi first. The priest comes before the king.
Moses anointed Aaron as High Priest and then told him he could not serve for seven days. He sat at the door of the Tabernacle and watched.
He asked the angel for a name he could call on in trouble. The angel gave him a job description instead, and a sword, and an address.
Judah's last words listed the lion he killed barehanded and the bear he flung off a cliff. Levi told his sons to teach their children to read the Torah.
After Phinehas stopped the plague, his enemies attacked his mother's lineage. God answered by publicly establishing his priestly identity through Moses.
Reuben's prince came forward on the second day expecting his turn. Moses sent him back to wait behind the tribe of scholars and the tribe of traders.
Each of the twelve standards flew colors matching the High Priest's breastplate. The camp was arranged as a portable extension of the Tabernacle itself.
After Korah's rebellion, twelve tribal rods lay in the Tabernacle overnight. By morning one had burst into almond blossoms and ripe fruit.
Two identical goats stood before the High Priest. A lot decided which burned on the altar and which walked alive into the wilderness carrying Israel's sins.
God tells Moses he will be gathered as Aaron was gathered. The rabbis heard desire: Moses wanted his brother's peaceful death, not his own.
Under his feet was something like a pavement of sapphire, clear as the sky. The men who stood there did not die of it. They sat down and had a meal.
Every Israelite could stand at the door of the Tent and watch. On went the robe, then the oil, then blood on Aaron's ear, thumb, and toe.
After Korah's rebellion, Aaron ran into the plague with altar fire and incense. He stopped the Angel of Death at the boundary between the living and the dead.
Zimri asked Moses what was wrong with a Midianite woman, since Moses had married one himself. Moses had no answer. A young priest stood up.
Every tribe received territory in Canaan. Levi received God. The rabbis insist this was not a penalty but the highest gift a tribe could be given.
Moses asked his brother to step into a cave with him. Inside was a made bed, a burning lamp, a table set with food, and angels standing in attendance.
He was twenty, out with the flocks, when the sky opened and an angel told him to come in. On the road home he found the shield lying there.
Aaron's first offering as High Priest was a tenth of an ephah of flour. Vayikra Rabbah found in that small measure the whole architecture of divine mercy.
Everyone in the camp would have said they were loyal. Moses asked a narrower question, and only the men who had kept their gold could answer it.
Akilas the convert asked the rabbis what God actually promised a stranger. Bread and clothing, said the verse. The rabbi told him to read it again.
The census and the Tabernacle silver matched. The rabbis found a hidden calendar, a Levite spared from death, and Bilam's oldest secret inside the number.
God made Moses install Aaron before witnesses. The robes were barely on before two sons burned. A half-Egyptian man then cursed God and was held for judgment.
Malkitzedek walked out of Shalem with bread and wine for a man coming off a battlefield, and then he blessed him in the wrong order.
When the calf was still warm, God told Moses: go down to your people. Two words cut the nation off. Moses argued back like a fighter who cannot afford to lose.
Levi's oldest son was Gershon. Moses counted Kehat first. Bamidbar Rabbah built a ladder of rank to explain why Torah knowledge beats birth order every time.
The letter opened: King Alexander to his brother Jonathan. With it came a purple robe and a crown of gold, and Jonathan wore them through Sukkot.
For seven days Moses served alone and the sky stayed empty. On the eighth morning Aaron stepped to the altar, and the Glory finally came down.
Three hundred priests carried one curtain to be washed. A handbreadth thick, woven on seventy-two strands, the parokhet guarded the holiest room.
