13 texts
Twelve men walked into the land of Canaan. Twelve came back. And with a few terrified words, they nearly destroyed an entire nation's future. Moses had brought the Israelites to th...
The core of the question boils down to this: is the punishment that the wicked endure before the ultimate end a good thing, or not? Seems simple. But like many things in Jewish tho...
No one wants to punish their child. The whole point is to guide them, to help them grow into a responsible, kind person. But sometimes, that guidance involves consequences, things ...
The Mekhilta takes three words — "I, the Lord" — and unpacks from them a theology of divine certainty that spans from punishment to reward. When God declares "I, the Lord" in the c...
Rabbi Chiyya ben Nachmani delivered a teaching in the name of Rabbi Yishmael that cuts against every natural human instinct. The verse in (Deuteronomy 8:10) already commands, "You ...
The Mekhilta identifies a devastating pattern in the story of Absalom, King David's rebellious son: the very thing he was proudest of became the instrument of his downfall. Scriptu...
The ninth commandment — "You shall not testify against your neighbor false testimony" — is more than a prohibition. It is the foundation of an entire legal system built on the reli...
"and there be no death": in the woman. "then he shall be punished": for the fetuses (i.e., payment for the fetuses shall be exacted of him.) You say this, but perhaps (the meaning ...
The verse in question (Deuteronomy 25:3) states, "Forty shall he smite him." Seems pretty straightforward. Forty lashes. Case closed. But Jewish tradition rarely leaves things at f...
The punishment of the ten faithless spies in the Hebrew Bible is a single verse. The Targum Jonathan turns it into body horror: worms emerging from their navels and consuming their...
A prosperous farmer in the land of Israel had fields that yielded abundantly, orchting, and vineyard heavy with fruit. Year after year, God blessed his harvests. But the farmer gre...
We know the story – the first murder, the first act of fratricide. But what were the specifics of the punishment? What did God actually do? The Torah tells us, "Now, you are cursed...
We know the story: the serpent deceives Eve, she eats from the Tree of Knowledge, and shares with Adam. God, understandably upset, metes out punishments. The serpent is cursed to c...
