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A Tzeduki — a Sadducee, member of the party that rejected the Oral Torah — once came to Rabbi Abhu with a question meant to sting. "Your God is a priest," he said, "for it is writt...
Tractate Yoma (folio 9, column 1) asks a question no one would think to ask unless they were counting: how many kohanim gedolim, high priests, served during each of the two Temples...
The verse in (1 Kings 4:30) tells us that Solomon's wisdom exceeded the wisdom of all the east and all of Egypt. The midrash on Kings, preserved in Yalkut Eliezer, offers a story t...
The midrashic retelling of the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE preserves an image that belongs to nightmares. The high priest stood in the burning courts of the Beit HaM...
Once Solomon had chained the demon king Ashmedai, he held him captive until the Temple was completed. When the work was done, the king grew curious. "What is your superiority over ...
In the days of the Mishnah the rabbis regulated even the meals of mourning. At a funeral feast they ordered ten cups of wine to be drunk in the house of the bereaved — three before...
When Nebuchadnezzar led Israel into the Babylonian captivity, he demanded that the Levites — the Temple singers — perform the Songs of Zion for his court. The Levites had spent the...
Rabbi Meir, on his yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, used to lodge with Judah the butcher, whose wife took loving care of him. One year Judah's wife died. Judah remarried, and when R...
Four rabbis were on the road to Rome. Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Rabbi Akiva traveled together, and while they were still one hundred and twenty ...
There is a moment in Chullin 90b where Rava calls out his fellow rabbi for exaggeration. The Mishnah had just described the heap of ashes that accumulated on the Temple altar — som...
When Solomon completed the First Temple and prepared to carry the Ark of the Covenant through the main gates, he opened his mouth to sing the words of Psalm 24: Lift up your heads,...
The Second Temple had a section called the Ezrat Nashim, the Court of Women — a gallery where women could gather for the great ceremonies while men stood on the lower floor. During...
When the Roman siege tightened around Jerusalem in 70 CE, wealth stopped meaning anything. Doeg ben Yosef was a rich man, and in the final weeks of the siege he stood in the street...
When Nero first entered the Holy Land, he did not arrive as a conqueror sure of his victory. He arrived as a diviner uncertain of his fate. He took up his bow and shot an arrow eas...
Kings are remembered in lists, and the sages kept careful accounts. For Hezekiah, they drew up two columns. On one side, the three things they praised him for. First, he dragged th...
The schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed even about how to kindle a candle. On Chanukah, Shammai said: begin with eight lights on the first night and remove one each evening, so...
The Sanhedrin of seventy-one was not a single institution. It was the top of a ladder, and Rabbi Yossi remembered the steps. In each city of Israel sat a provincial court of twenty...
A man in Jerusalem held a grand banquet. He had a friend named Kamtza and an enemy named Bar Kamtza. He sent his servant to invite Kamtza. The servant, confused by the similar name...
The Holy One has often worked wonders in the lives of His children at the hour of their greatest need. These miracles are recorded not for spectacle but as a brake against disbelie...
King Solomon wanted to build the Temple from unhewn stone. The Torah forbade iron tools on the altar, and Solomon, meticulous as always, extended the prohibition to the whole sanct...
When Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Talmud tells us, he did not content himself with fire and slaughter. He stripped the Temple of its sacred vessels, wrapped them in the vei...
Every year, in the dark weeks of winter, Jewish homes kindle flames for eight nights — the Chag HaChanukah, the Feast of Dedication. The festival commemorates the purifying o...
The rabbis taught that Jerusalem was not like other cities. Ten laws applied to her alone, each one a small clue to her strange status. A mortgaged house there was never permanentl...
When Israel went up to Jerusalem for one of the three pilgrimage festivals (Exodus 34:23-24), a season came in which the wells ran dry. There was no water for the pilgrims to drink...
There were fifteen steps in the Temple that led down from the Court of Israel to the Court of the Women. The rabbis said they matched the fifteen Shir HaMa’alot, the Songs of...
When God commanded Aaron and his sons to kindle the lamps of the menorah in the Tabernacle, Aaron worried. The tribal princes were bringing their own magnificent dedication offerin...
The Temple had been burned. Rabbi Joshua walked through the ashes of Jerusalem and said aloud, to no one in particular, “Woe to us. The place where Israel atoned for its sins...
The Torah says God formed man from the dust of the earth. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 2:7) takes this one sentence and turns it into a cosmic geography. "The Lord God create...
The Torah says God placed the man in the garden "to work it and to guard it." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 2:15) tells us where Adam came from and what the work really was. G...
This is one of those verses where Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 8:20) opens a hidden corridor through the whole Torah. The Hebrew simply says Noah built an altar. The Aramaic ...
This is perhaps the single most important identification Targum Pseudo-Jonathan makes in the Abram cycle. On (Genesis 14:18) the Aramaic declares: Malka Zadika, who was Shem bar No...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 14:20) preserves Shem-Malkizedek's blessing and the patriarch's response. Blessed be Eloha Ilaha, who hath made thine enemies as a shield which r...
The voice from heaven does not soften what it is asking. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:2), each phrase lands heavier than the last: Take now thy son, thy only one whom t...
Stand where the Temple will stand and look down. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:9), the mountain beneath Abraham's feet is not virgin ground. It is the oldest altar in th...
Before he walks down the mountain, Abraham offers one more prayer. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 22:14), the Aramaic paraphrase turns the Hebrew's terse place-naming into a...
Once the camels had finished drinking — all ten of them, every last swallow — the servant reached into his pack and took out jewelry. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:22) refu...
Twenty years of marriage and no child. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:21) says Isaac did not pray in his tent, did not pray in his field, did not pray at the local altar. He...
When Isaac draws Jacob close and breathes him in, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us what the patriarch actually smells. It is not the field. It is not the goats. It is the incens...
The Torah says Jacob came upon a place and lay down because the sun had set (Genesis 28:11). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan cannot read that verse without shouting. It was not just any...
When Jacob woke from his ladder-dream, he was shaken. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 28:17) spells out what exactly had shaken him. How dreadful and glorious is this place....
Jacob set a pillar and poured oil on it (Genesis 28:22). Then he made a promise about what that pillar would become. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan goes further than the plain verse. T...
With her third son, Leah reaches for a new hope. This time, she thinks, Jacob will at last be yilaveh — attached — to her (Genesis 29:34). So she names the child Levi, from the roo...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves one of the strangest accounts in all of Jewish tradition (Genesis 32:25). Jacob was left alone across the Jabbok, and an angel wrestled him in the ...
"And he built there an altar, and named that place, To God, who made His Shekhinah to dwell in Bethel, because there had been revealed to him the angels of the Lord, in his flight ...
After the brothers threw Joseph into the pit, they sat down to eat. Then they looked up and saw a caravan. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 37:25) gives the caravan an unexpected...
When Joseph and Benjamin finally embrace, their tears do not flow for the reasons we expect. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the verse as prophecy. "He bowed himself upon his brother ...
Joseph survived the slander, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains why. "He returned to abide in his early strength, and would not yield himself unto sin, and subdued his inclination...
Benjamin was the youngest, and Jacob's last blessing might be the most exalted. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan reads the Hebrew "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf" (Genesis 49:27) as a declarati...
