583 texts · Page 11 of 13
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 8) transforms a description of the Promised Land's natural resources into a prophecy about its intellectual future. The Hebrew says the land has...
The Targum Jonathan on (Deuteronomy 10) buries an entire civil war inside what the Hebrew Bible treats as a simple travel itinerary. The Hebrew says Israel "journeyed from Beeroth ...
Chapter 9 They [the Israelites]--the entire congregation--came to the wilderness of Tzin in the first month, and the nation settled there, and Miriam died there and was buried ther...
And he arrived at the place – Why do we use a pseudonym and call the Holy One ‘place’ (makom)? Because He is the place of the world and the world is not His place. R’ Yosi ben Hali...
The Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187 preserves a terse but powerful warning about the danger of asking the wrong questions — or more precisely, about knowing when to stop asking. God de...
Deborah the prophetess did something no other judge in Israel had done — she held court outdoors, beneath a palm tree. The Yalkut Shimoni on Nach explains exactly why, and the reas...
These are the ten exiles which the precious Children of Zion have been exiled: Israel was exiled by Sennacherib in three expulsions; they were exiled afterward by Nebuchadnezzar wi...
Adrianus orders his army to worship him. He declares that within three years he will capture the Temple. Three philosophers dispute with him. One says how can a new king be recogni...
When the heathen conquered the Temple Josef Meshita was asked to go in first. He was told that whatever he brought out should be his. He carried out a golden candlestick, which was...
The students of Rabbi Akiba were traveling on a road between towns when they spotted a band of robbers approaching from the opposite direction. The bandits were armed and dangerous...
When the Roman siege tightened around Jerusalem, starvation became a weapon more terrible than any sword. Doeg ben Josef was a man of means — he offered a full measure of gold for ...
When the prophet Isaiah prayed for a sign to confirm that King Hezekiah would recover from his illness, God performed one of the most spectacular miracles in all of scripture: the ...
A pious man did strange things, i. e., placed a young girl in his bed, &c., but was not suspected of any wrong by his disciples who found afterwards that they were justified in not...
Story of the dispute between R. Shimeon b. Gamliel, R. Meir and R. Nathan. Gamliel was a prince and wanted to make a distinction between himself and the other two scholars when the...
R. Joshua b. Levi met the angel of death, who brought him to the wall of the Garden of Eden. R. Joshua took the angel’s sword and jumped into the garden. He returned the sword at t...
Rabbi Patra had a student who struggled to learn. Where other teachers might have given up after ten repetitions, or twenty, or even a hundred, Rabbi Patra taught his student the s...
V. A man fed his father daily with two doves. When asked where he got them, he replied, “Evil—eyed dog, *) From shorter recension B. ed. Jellinek. vide p. 7, § 19. - 147 “ eat and ...
A man once said that if he wanted to lose his property nobody could stop him. Another replied that no one could fight against God's providence. The man, however, said he would try....
The Roman Emperor once challenged the Jewish sages with a question designed to mock their God. "Your God is described as all-powerful," the Emperor said, "a mighty warrior, a king ...
Nahum ish Gamzo — called that because no matter what happened, he always said "Gam zu le-tovah" ("This too is for the best") — was sent by the Jewish community to the Roman Emperor...
The martyrdom of Rabbi Hananya ben Teradyon is one of the most searing stories in all of rabbinic literature. The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 18a) records that the Romans found him sittin...
When the Roman legions surrounded Jerusalem and cut off every supply route, the famine inside the walls became unspeakable. People chewed leather. They ate grass from between the s...
Merodach-Baladan, the king of Babylon, once experienced something that shook his understanding of the natural order. The Talmud records that he noticed the sun behaving strangely —...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 11a) records a teaching that transformed how the sages understood the mechanics of divine reward: charity does not merely help the recipient — it literally s...
Robert of Sicily. Wickerhauser, p. 167. Ring. Badder, Badische Sagen, No. 405. Comestor, 1, III. Eisenmenger I, 351 ff. Gervasius, ed. Lieb- recht, p. 8 and note 12, p. 77. Gesta R...
Rabbi Akiba once invited his students to a meal. The first course arrived half-cooked—the lentils were hard, the bread was doughy, and the vegetables were barely warm. Most of the ...
The sage known for his extraordinary carefulness was Rav, and his caution extended even to the smallest details of daily life. The Talmud in Hullin (95b) preserves a teaching about...
Rabbi Meir had a principle: never trust a person whose name contains the word for evil. The Talmud (Yoma 83b) tells the story of how this principle was tested — and proven devastat...
The tale of "Wickedness Defeated" follows a pattern known across many cultures: a contest between cleverness and brute evil, in which the clever hero outwits a far more powerful ad...
Wars of Jacob against Sichem. Midr. Hagadol Gen. Vayyehi, f. 153 a. Midr. Vayisau. cf. Gen. R. ch. 80, 97. Jerahmeel, ed. Gaster XXXVI, 6, p. 80 and Introd. p. XXXI f. Bahya Com. G...
A young boy discovered that he could understand the language of birds. When sparrows chattered on the rooftops, he heard gossip. When ravens called from the treetops, he heard warn...
Three brothers set out on a journey — and encountered a witch who tested them with riddles, tricks, and dark magic. The tale, preserved in Jewish and comparative folklore collectio...
Two robbers had been terrorizing the roads between towns, ambushing travelers, stealing their goods, and leaving them bruised and empty-handed in the dust. The local authorities se...
The Talmud (Taanit 22a) tells of Elijah the prophet revealing to Rabbi Beroka which people in the marketplace were destined for the World to Come. Rabbi Beroka expected Elijah to p...
Charity rewarded — the phrase appears throughout rabbinic literature because the sages considered it not a pious hope but a cosmic law. The Talmud (Taanit 24a, Jerusalem Talmud Hor...
A man hid his money in a hollow tree — and the story of what happened to that money became a parable about the cleverness of thieves and the greater cleverness of the righteous. Th...
A man tore his mantle in half and gave half to a stranger — an act of generosity that became the seed of a much larger story. The "Half the Mantle" tale is found across many cultur...
Three questions were posed to a sage — and his answers became legendary. The "Three Questions" format appears throughout medieval literature, but the Jewish versions are distinguis...
The verse in Deuteronomy asks a haunting question: "How could one pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight?" (Deuteronomy 32:30). The answer, the Torah says, is that G...
The Torah tells us, "Moses called Hoshea son of Nun, Joshua [Yehoshua]" (Numbers 13:16). But here's the question: why did Moses change Hoshea's name to Joshua? What prompted this a...
We often rush through the creation story, but sometimes, lingering on a single verse can reveal a whole world of fascinating ideas. Take (Genesis 1:13): "It was evening and it was ...
That's the story we find ourselves in today, deep in the heart of Bereshit Rabbah, a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. The verse in question? (...
The scene: Jacob, after years of service to his less-than-honest uncle Laban, has finally made his escape with his wives, children, and flocks. But Laban pursues him, catching up o...
Turns out, there was a surprising amount of "calling for peace" involved. (Deuteronomy 20:10) tells us, "When you approach a city to wage war against it, you shall call to it for p...
The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet as it's known in Hebrew, grapples with this very idea. It’s a meditation on the cyclical nature of existence, the ups and downs that define our...
The Book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet as it's known in Hebrew, certainly thought so. And the Rabbis, plumbing its depths in Kohelet Rabbah, took that idea and ran with it. Consider ...
It’s a universal human experience. And it's something the ancient rabbis wrestled with too, as we see in Kohelet Rabbah, a fascinating commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes. The v...
In fact, it's echoed in ancient texts that speak to the timeless struggle between humanity and… well, something much bigger than ourselves. Let’s turn to Kohelet Rabbah, a collecti...
