7 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Transformation from across Jewish tradition.
7 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines transformation, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Enoch vanishes from a genealogy without a grave. Two blazing angels lift him from his bed, and he returns as Metatron, heaven's Great Scribe.
Enoch's angelic guides abandon him at the threshold of the tenth heaven. He falls to the ground in terror. Then God calls him to come closer.
The fiery chariot took Elijah to heaven and that was not the end. He became Sandalphon, the angel who weaves Israel's prayers into garlands for God.
Strangers walked into a tent in Haran and walked out as different people. Later a scribe turned a verse around so nobody would see God waiting.
A trap meant to burn Maimonides alive closes on his accuser, he turns into a lion to break cruel decrees, and Ibn Ezra comes hunting his equal.
Potiphar's daughter mocks the slave Joseph, then sees him from her tower and falls. Seven days in ash, an angel, and paradise honey remake her.
Enoch had stood before God's face, and no human eye could survive what that did to him. So an angel white as snow pressed ice into his skin.
