583 texts · Page 8 of 13
The text asks a pretty direct question: "Who can wage battle in the place where you are?" It's not just about physical battle, but about any kind of opposition against the divine p...
The mystical tradition of Kabbalah is all about finding those secrets, and the Tikkun (spiritual repair)ei Zohar, a companion to the Zohar, is packed with them.Yes, a sword! The te...
The Mekhilta articulates one of the most powerful principles in all of rabbinic theology through a deceptively simple logical argument. The principle: God's capacity for good alway...
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...
The Mekhilta, the halakhic midrash on Exodus from the 2nd century CE, examines one of the starkest either-or passages in the Prophets. Isaiah delivers God's ultimatum: "If you acqu...
The Torah declares of every first-born: "he is Mine." But elsewhere, God commands: "the male shall you sanctify to the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 15:19). The Mekhilta spots a tens...
As Israel stood at the edge of the sea, they looked back and saw something terrifying. "And, behold, Egypt coming after them" (Exodus 14:10). The Mekhilta notices a grammatical det...
The Mekhilta cites Jacob's blessing to Joseph — "I have given you an additional portion over your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Emori with my sword and with my bow" (...
The Mekhilta draws yet another proof of prayer's supreme power from Jacob's blessing over the tribe of Judah. The Torah declares: "A lion's whelp is Judah" (Genesis 49:9). On the s...
The Mekhilta brings the confrontation between David and Goliath as the ultimate demonstration of prayer's superiority over physical weapons. David declared to the Philistine giant:...
The Mekhilta cites King Asa of Judah as yet another example of prayer triumphing over impossible military odds. The story appears in (II Chronicles 14:10), where Asa faces a massiv...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael offers a vivid interpretation of God's attack on the Egyptian army during the crossing of the Red Sea, reading the verse "And He shall let fly His sha...
King Jehoshaphat marched his army into the desert of Tekoa and won a battle with nothing but faith. The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, a 3rd-century CE halakhic midrash (rabbinic inter...
The Mekhilta draws attention to a strange detail about the drowning of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. When God cast "a horse and its rider" into the sea, something happened that...
The Mekhilta notices a subtle but important contradiction in the Song of the Sea and resolves it with a vivid image of what actually happened to the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Se...
"This is my G–d and I will extol Him": R. Eliezer says: Whence is it derived that a maid-servant beheld at the Red Sea what was not beheld by Ezekiel and the other prophets, of who...
"The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name" (Exodus 15:3). Rabbi Yehudah declares that this verse is extraordinarily rich — it illuminates truths that appear in many other pas...
The Torah declares, "The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name" (Exodus 15:3). This verse, from the Song of the Sea, prompted the Mekhilta to address a potential misunderstand...
The Song of the Sea contains multiple divine titles and attributes, each one apparently conveying a distinct aspect of God's power. The Mekhilta asks a pointed question: if all of ...
The Mekhilta offers a vivid parable to distinguish God's warrior nature from every human warrior. Consider, it says, a warrior in a province who is fully equipped with every weapon...
The Mekhilta presents another parable contrasting human warriors with God, this time focusing on the problem of aging. A human warrior reaches the height of his power at forty year...
The Mekhilta presents another contrast between a mortal king at war and God. A king of flesh and blood, while engaged in battle, cannot supply all of his soldiers with what they ne...
"the L–rd is His name": It is with His name that He wars, and He has no need of any of these (military) appurtenances. And thus did David say (I Samuel 17:95) "You come to me with ...
The Mekhilta asks another of its characteristically sharp questions about the Red Sea crossing. The verse says the Egyptians "descended into the metzulot" — the whirlpools or churn...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael presents a teaching that parallels and extends the previous one about divine wrath, now turning to the subject of divine warfare. The principle is the...
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael continues its catalog of enemies who rose against Israel and were struck down by heaven, turning now to one of the most dramatic military disasters in...
The Mekhilta preserves a disturbing alternative reading of Pharaoh's boast. "Others say: It is not written 'I will draw my sword,' but 'I will empty my sword.'" The shift from "dra...
The Mekhilta applies the same logic to Moab that it applied to Edom. The verse says "the mighty ones of Moab were seized with trembling," and the rabbis ask the same question: why?...
The phrase "they turned to the desert" in (Exodus 16:10) seems like a simple geographic note. The Israelites looked toward the wilderness, and there they saw the glory of God. But ...
"Speak to them, saying: Towards evening you will eat flesh": He said to them: You have asked for two things: You have asked for bread; for it is impossible for flesh and blood (to ...
When God sent quail to the Israelites in the wilderness, the Torah says "it covered the camp" (Exodus 16:13). The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asked the obvious question: covered it t...
Amalek's attack on Israel was not a matter of geography or convenience. Rabbi Yehudah teaches that Amalek actually bypassed five other nations to reach the Israelites. He had to cr...
Rabbi Chaninah once brought a question to Rabbi Elazar in the Great College: how should we understand the word "Refidim" in the verse "and warred with Israel in Refidim"? Should it...
When Amalek attacked the Israelites at Rephidim—the first nation to wage war against the newly freed slaves—Moses turned to his student Joshua with a command (Exodus 17:9): "Choose...
Rabbi Eliezer Hamodai offered a different interpretation of why Moses told Joshua to "go out" and fight Amalek—and his version cuts deeper. According to Rabbi Eliezer, Moses challe...
Before the battle against Amalek, Moses made a declaration: "Tomorrow I shall stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand" (Exodus 17:9). But what did he mean by "tom...
Three men climbed to the top of the hill before the battle against Amalek: Moses, Aaron, and Chur (Exodus 17:10). The Mekhilta explains that their ascent was not a military decisio...
(Exodus 17:12) records a detail that the Mekhilta found deeply instructive: "And the hands of Moses became heavy." Why did his hands grow heavy during the battle with Amalek? The r...
During the battle against Amalek, Moses stood on a hilltop with his arms raised, channeling divine power to the Israelite warriors below. But holding your arms up for hours is grue...
Rabbi Eliezer claimed that a single Hebrew word in the Torah contained an entire military history encoded as an acronym. The word is "vayachalosh," which appears in the account of ...
After Joshua's defeat of Amalek at Rephidim, the Mekhilta records an interpretation that turns the battle into a fulfillment of one of the most chilling prophecies in Scripture. Th...
When Moses stood on Mount Nebo and looked out over the Promised Land, God pointed to each region and revealed not just the terrain but the history that would unfold upon it. The Me...
Before Moses died, God took him to the summit of Mount Nebo and showed him the entirety of the Promised Land — every region, every valley, every corner of the territory his people ...
The Torah's commandment to erase the memory of Amalek reaches to the farthest limit of destruction. The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael explains the phrase (Exodus 17:14) "from under the...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael asks a deceptively simple question: what is the purpose of the commandment "You shall not bow down"? If the Torah already states in (Exodus 22:19) tha...
"Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12). The fifth of the Ten Commandments seems straightforward enough, but the Mekhilta immediately asks: what does "honor" actually re...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael invites the reader to examine the rewards promised for three different commandments and to see a striking pattern. Each act of honor directed at the p...
The fifth commandment — "Honor your father and your mother" — comes with a promise attached: "so that your days be prolonged upon the earth" (Exodus 20:12). Most commandments in th...
