2,692 texts · Page 17 of 57
Not a single hammer blow was heard during the entire construction. According to Josephus, Solomon's Temple rose from the earth in total silence—the massive stones fitted together s...
King Josiah was eight years old when he inherited the throne of Judah. His grandfather Manasseh had been the worst king in the nation's history—a man who slaughtered prophets until...
In the first year of his reign, Cyrus king of Persia did something no conqueror had ever done: he freed an enslaved nation and paid to rebuild their God's house. Josephus explains ...
Three bodyguards of King Darius entered a contest that would decide the fate of the Jewish Temple. The king had fallen asleep after a great feast and woke unable to sleep again. He...
The Temple was rebuilt, but the real crisis was internal. Josephus records that when the returnees from Babylon laid the foundation, the Samaritans—descendants of foreigners whom A...
Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world by age thirty, but Josephus tells a story about the one city he did not need to take by force. When Alexander marched on Jerus...
The crisis started from within. Josephus records that after the High Priest Onias III died, a power struggle erupted between his brothers. Jason and Menelaus each bribed the Seleuc...
After routing the Seleucid armies, Judas Maccabeus did not rest. Josephus records that the surrounding nations, alarmed by the sudden revival of Jewish power, attacked Jewish commu...
In 63 BCE, two brothers tore Judea apart. Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, both sons of the Hasmonean queen Alexandra, fought each other for the throne. Hyrcanus was the elder and the hig...
Herod tore down the Second Temple and rebuilt it from scratch. Not because it was falling apart. Because it wasn't grand enough for him. According to Josephus in Antiquities XV, He...
Two Torah scholars convinced their students to tear a golden eagle off the Temple gate in broad daylight. Herod burned them alive for it. According to Josephus in Antiquities XVII,...
Pontius Pilate moved his troops into Jerusalem at night and brought Roman military standards bearing Caesar's image into the holy city. Every previous governor had known better. Ac...
Caligula declared himself a god and ordered a colossal statue of himself installed inside the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. The Jews told the Roman general they would rather die, ev...
Agrippa did something no Jewish king had done in a generation: he made the people feel like they had a ruler who was actually one of them. According to Josephus in Antiquities XIX,...
Tzimtzum, a Hebrew word that means "contraction" or "self-limitation," is a profound idea in Jewish mysticism, particularly within the Kabbalistic tradition. It suggests that, befo...
The answers? Well, they're as varied and beautiful as the stars in the night sky. Some say God dwells in the celestial realms, way up in the highest heaven, seated on the Kisei ha-...
Jewish tradition teaches that all of creation springs forth from the very Name of God, specifically the holiest Name: YHVH. The Zohar tells us that in the very beginning, God revea...
Jewish tradition actually grapples quite intensely with the idea of a God who experiences suffering, even to an unimaginable degree. It's a challenging concept, isn't it? How can a...
In Jewish mysticism, this presence is often understood through the concept of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence). But here's something fascinating: it's not just one Shekhinah, bu...
That’s right. According to some mystical traditions, particularly within Kabbalah, the Temple was literally the place where God, the King, and His Shekhinah (שְׁכִינָה), His Divine...
Jewish tradition has a powerful, even startling, way of expressing this idea, especially when talking about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It wasn't just bricks and mo...
The Shekhinah (שכינה), often translated as "Divine Presence," is a complex concept in Jewish mysticism. Think of her as the feminine aspect of God, the immanent presence that dwell...
What happens when even the Divine weeps? What happens when home is lost, not just for us, but for God, too? We often think of God as unchanging, eternal, beyond our human messiness...
It all starts, as many intense stories do, with a separation. Specifically, the separation of God and the Shekhinah (שכינה), God's Divine Presence, often seen as the feminine aspec...
Our story today takes us to 16th-century Safed, a center of Jewish mysticism, and introduces us to Rabbi Abraham Berukhim, a man known for his profound connection to the Divine. Th...
Some stories tell us it all started with a division. A grand sorting. According to tradition, when God created the world, it wasn't a uniform, homogenous blob. No, no. It was divid...
For the Jewish people, tradition answers with a resounding name: Michael. But it's not always a simple story of unwavering support. Our relationship with Michael, the archangel, is...
Some say they're locked away in a book, a very special book called the Book of Raziel. Now, this isn't your ordinary paperback. According to tradition, this book was revealed to Ad...
How can you possibly do both? That's the dilemma our ancestors faced after their return to Zion. The story goes that the people, overwhelmed by the demands of rebuilding, found the...
That’s the scene we’re stepping into today, a scene that plays out once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Our focus? The High Priest, his heart pounding, preparing to en...
The holiday of Sukkot, as we know, is based on the biblical verse, "You shall live in booths seven days" (Leviticus 23:42). We build these temporary dwellings, the sukkot (plural o...
There's a story, a haunting one, about a well within the Temple court in Jerusalem. It's known as the Weeping Well, and its story is woven into the very fabric of the Ninth of Av, ...
We all know the story from Genesis: the serpent, the forbidden fruit, the exile. But what then? Did the Garden just sit there, empty and forlorn? Not quite. According to Jewish lor...
Jewish tradition often speaks of a profound connection between the heavens and the earth – “as above, so below,” as the Kabbalists say. But what happens when tragedy strikes here? ...
We're talking about the Temple in Jerusalem, the Beit Hamikdash (the Holy Temple in Jerusalem). For centuries, it stood as the center of Jewish life, a place of pilgrimage, prayer,...
This one comes to us from a letter written in the fall of 1665 by Nathan of Gaza, the prophet of Shabbatai (the Sabbath) Zevi, a figure who stirred up messianic fervor like few oth...
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 Sha'ar HaGilgulim (the reincarnation of souls), or "Gate of Reincarnations," offers a profound, even cosmic, explanation, connecting it all to the destruction of the Temple in ...
That’s the feeling that washes over me as I read this passage from Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a key text in the Heikhalot literature, which are early Jewish mystical...
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 ...
It knows that God feels it too. In the Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a text from the Heikhalot literature—these are the ancient mystical texts describing ascents to the...
That’s the feeling I get every time I delve into the mysteries of the Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) literature – the ancient Jewish texts that explore mystical visions and ascen...
Jewish tradition grapples with this very idea, especially when it comes to the Torah, the Law. Rabbi Ishmael, a central figure in mystical Jewish thought, shares a fascinating teac...
It's not like there was an instruction manual from IKEA! Rabbi Ishmael, relaying a teaching from Rabbi Akiba in the name of Rabbi Eliezer the Great, gives us a pretty amazing insig...
Heikhalot (the heavenly palaces) Rabbati, a mystical text describing heavenly ascents and visions, gives us a glimpse into that pivotal moment. It wasn't just about laying stones a...
These texts, steeped in mystical traditions, offer us glimpses into the heavenly realms. What does God actually say? This particular passage plunges us into a unique moment of reve...
In Mitpachat Sefarim, a collection of Jewish writings whose name literally means "wrapping of books," we find a raw, unflinching look at a generation seemingly gone astray. The aut...
It's more than intellectual prowess, that's for sure. It's about character, about who you are as a person. The Mitpachat Sefarim, an important Jewish text, delves into exactly this...
