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All who help Israel, help, as it were, the Holy One Blessed be He, viz. (Judges 5:23) "Curse Meroz, said the angel of the L–rd. Curse bitterly its dwellers. For they came not to th...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael continues its catalog of enemies who rose against Israel and were struck down by heaven, turning now to one of the most dramatic military disasters in...
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, stood as the supreme example of human arrogance brought low. The Mekhilta recounts how this mighty ruler dared to place himself above all creation....
The Mekhilta identifies another future-tense verb in the Song at the Sea. It is not written "You have sent forth Your wrath" — as if God's anger were already spent — but "You will ...
All woods, when they burn, their sound is not heard; but stubble, when it burns, it crackles and is heard. Thus did the sound of Egypt, in its destruction, make itself heard. All w...
When the (other) kingdoms are symbolized, they are symbolized as cedars, viz. (Ezekiel 31:3) "Behold, Ashur, a cedar in the Levanon," and (Amos 2:9) "And I destroyed the Emori from...
Antoninus, the Roman emperor, once asked Rabbeinu HaKadosh — Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah (the earliest code of rabbinic law) — for political counsel. "I wan...
The redemption of Israel was not a private event. According to the Mekhilta, the entire natural world erupted in celebration. Not the heavens alone rejoiced — the mountains and all...
(Exodus 15:9) "The foe said: I shall pursue, etc.": This appertains (chronologically) to the beginning of the parshah. Why is it written here? For "there is no before and after in ...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael connects the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea to the apocalyptic prophecy of Ezekiel about the war of Gog and Magog. The link between these tw...
The Mekhilta pauses on two words from (Exodus 15:10) — "mighty waters" — and asks a deceptively simple question: who in scripture is called "mighty"? The answer reveals a fourfold ...
The Mekhilta takes the worldwide rejection of idolatry at the Red Sea and projects it forward into the future. What happened momentarily at the sea — when all nations opened their ...
Variantly: "Who is like You bailmim" ("among the mute"). You hear the defamation of Your children and You remain silent, viz. (Isaiah 42:14) "I have ever been silent; I have been s...
Variantly: Who is like You ("ba'eilim") among those who call themselves gods? Pharaoh called himself a god, viz. (Ezekiel 29:3) "Mine is my river (the Nile), and I have made it." A...
Variantly: Who is like You among those whom others call "gods" and who are without substance, those of whom it is written (Psalms 115:5) "hey have a mouth but cannot speak, etc." B...
The Mekhilta draws a sharp contrast between a human artisan and the divine Creator. When a mortal sculptor sets out to make a figure, he must build it piece by piece — starting fro...
The Mekhilta once again turns to verb tense to extract prophecy from the Song at the Sea. The verse does not say "worked wonders" — past tense, as though God's miracles were finish...
Variantly: "You inclined Your right hand": We are hereby apprised that He cast them to the dry land, and the dry land cast them to the sea, saying: If for only accepting the blood ...
The Mekhilta offers an alternate reading of the Song at the Sea's phrase "You have inclined Your right hand." When God stretches out His hand, the wicked vanish from the world enti...
The Mekhilta offers a vivid and unsettling analogy for divine power over the nations. Picture a man holding eggs in his hand. He tilts his hand just slightly, barely a movement, an...
The Mekhilta interprets the verse "You have led forth in lovingkindness" (Exodus 15:13) as a startling admission: Israel had no merit of their own when they were redeemed from Egyp...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "this people whom You have redeemed": For all the world is Yours, and You have no people but Israel, viz. (Isaiah 43:21) "This people have I created for Myself, etc...
Once, Rebbi was sitting and expounding that one woman bore sixty ten thousands, when a disciple interjected: Rebbi, who is greater, the world or the tzaddik (a righteous person)? R...
The Mekhilta interprets the phrase "to the habitation of Your holiness" as a reference to the Temple in Jerusalem. God guided Israel through the wilderness in the merit of the holy...
(Exodus, Ibid.) "All the inhabitants of Canaan melted ('namogu')": When the inhabitants of Canaan heard that the Holy One Blessed be He had said to Moses (Devarim 20:16-17) "But fr...
(Exodus 15:18) "You will bring them and You will plant them": The fathers prophesied without knowing what (they were prophesying). It is not written "You will bring us and You will...
The Mekhilta offers an alternate reading of the verse "You will bring them and You will plant them." The key word is "plant." God does not merely promise to place Israel in the lan...
The Mekhilta reads the phrase "You have wrought, O Lord" and immediately pivots to a devastating question: if God Himself built the Temple with His own hands, what does it say abou...
The Mekhilta deepens its meditation on the Temple with a remarkable claim about divine craftsmanship. "The sanctuary, O Lord, did Your hands establish" — note the plural. Hands, no...
(Ibid. 20) "Then Miriam the prophetess took": Where do we find that Miriam was a prophetess? She said to her father (Amram): In the end, you will beget a son who will be the savior...
(Exodus 15:20) introduces Miriam with a curious title: "the prophetess, the sister of Aaron." The Mekhilta immediately spots the problem. Miriam was the sister of both Aaron and Mo...
R. Eliezer says: They journeyed by word of the L–rd. For in two or three places we find that they journeyed by word of the L–rd; and here, too, they journeyed by word of the L–rd. ...
(Exodus 15:22) "And they went out to the desert of Shur": This is the desert of Kazav. They said about the desert of Kazav that it was nine hundred parasangs by nine hundred parasa...
The Mekhilta records an alternative explanation for why Israel went three days without water. According to this view, the problem was not the desert at all. The problem was their c...
The expounders of metaphors said: They did not "find" words of Torah, which are compared to water. Where is this seen? (Isaiah 55:1) "Ho! all who thirst, go to the waters!" Because...
R. Shimon b. Gamliel says: Come and see how different are the ways of the Holy One Blessed be He from the ways of flesh and blood. (A man of) flesh and blood heals bitter with swee...
R. Eliezer Hamodai says: "And the dew layer ascended": (homiletically) there arose the prayers of our forefathers who were buried in the earth, on the face of the ground. "and, beh...
(Exodus 16:28) "And the L–rd said to Moses: How long will you refuse to keep, etc.": R. Yehoshua says: The Holy One Blessed be He said to Moses: Moses, say to Israel: I took you ou...
Rabbi Yossi offered a provocative comparison: just as a prophet reveals what is hidden, the manna did the same. The wordplay is built into the Hebrew—the word maggid (one who tells...
Centuries after the Exodus, the prophet Jeremiah faced a stubborn problem. The people of Israel had stopped studying Torah, and their excuse was entirely practical: "How will we fe...
After Joshua's defeat of Amalek at Rephidim, the Mekhilta records an interpretation that turns the battle into a fulfillment of one of the most chilling prophecies in Scripture. Th...
Moses begged God for permission to cross into the Promised Land. The word he used was "na" — a term the rabbis identified as pure imploration, the language of a person who knows th...
The Mekhilta asks a triumphant question: how do we know that all of Moses' many requests — his desperate pleas to enter the Promised Land — were ultimately granted by the Holy One,...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael explores a tradition about what God revealed to Moses at the end of his life. Among the many visions granted to Moses before his death, the rabbis ask...
The Mekhilta reveals one of the most intimate teachings about the relationship between God and Israel: whenever a miracle is performed for the Jewish people, that miracle is not ju...
(Exodus 18:1) "And Yithro heard": What did he hear that caused him to come (and join Israel)? The war with Amalek, which is juxtaposed with this section. These are the words of R. ...
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah made a bold claim about how deeply the Torah regards circumcision. The foreskin, he taught, is so repulsive in the eyes of God that Scripture uses "uncircu...
