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Rabbi Achai ben Yoshiyah addressed a question about the Sabbath commandment's reference to "you and your son and your daughter." Who exactly are the son and daughter mentioned here...
"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 raises a question about who is obligated to honor parents. The commandment says "Honor your father and your mother," but a related verse in (Leviticus...
Rebbi says: Beloved is the honoring of parents by Him who spoke and brought the world into being, His having equated their honor and fear to His honor, and their curse (i.e., their...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael uses a vivid parable to explain why murder is equated with diminishing the divine image. The teaching compares God to a king of flesh and blood who en...
The sages offered an alternative view of how the Ten Commandments were arranged on the two tablets. While Rabbi Chanina ben Gamliel taught that five commandments appeared on each t...
Rebbi — Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — noticed that the Torah prohibits coveting in two separate places using two different Hebrew words. (Exodus 20:14) says "You shall not covet," while (...
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house"—general. "and his man-servant, and his maid-servant, and his ox, and his ass—particular. general-particular (The rule is:) There exists ...
The Mekhilta offers yet another interpretation of "And all the people saw" — this one focused not on the nature of the experience but on the spiritual state of the Israelites who r...
R. Eliezer says: to apprise us of the exalted state of Israel. When they all stood at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, there were no blind ones among them, viz. "And all the peopl...
The Israelites stood at the edge of the sea, the Egyptian army bearing down behind them, and terror gripped the camp. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, freshly lib...
All who are haughty of heart cause the land to be defiled and the Shechinah to depart, as it is written (Ibid. 101:5) "The haughty of eyes and the broad of heart, him will I not ab...
(Exodus 20:19) records God telling Moses: "Thus shall you say to the children of Israel." The Mekhilta seizes on the word "thus" — in Hebrew, "koh" — and derives a surprising rule:...
At Sinai, God made a statement to Israel that no other nation in history could claim: "You saw that from the heavens I spoke to you." The Mekhilta pauses on this verse to draw out ...
Rabbi Nathan drew a sharp line between what Israel experienced at Sinai and what the rest of the world perceived. The nations heard about the revelation. Israel saw it. That differ...
Rabbi Nathan interpreted the prohibition against idolatry in (Exodus 20:20) — "You shall not make alongside Me" — with striking directness. God is saying: do not think you can make...
The book of Job presents one of the most profound tests of faith in all of Scripture. Job loses everything — his wealth, his children, his health — and his wife urges him to curse ...
Rabbi Eliezer taught about the meaning of suffering by turning to the book of Proverbs. He cited the verse: "The chastisement of the Lord, my son, do not despise" (Proverbs 3:11). ...
R. Shimon b. Yochai says: Beloved are afflictions, for three goodly gifts were given to Israel and are desired by the nations of the world, and they were given to them only through...
Rabbi Nechemiah made a bold claim: afflictions are beloved by God. Not merely tolerated, not merely permitted — beloved. And he backed this claim with a comparison to sacrificial o...
(Ibid.) "Do not build them hewn": In it (the altar) you may not build them hewn, but you may build them hewn in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies. For it would follow (otherw...
Rabbi Yishmael examined a verse about the priests serving at the altar and found a surprising teaching hidden inside what appeared to be a redundancy. The verse warns: "so that you...
"Do that your nakedness not be revealed upon it": Upon it (the altar) you may not take broad strides, but you may in the sanctuary and in the holy of holies. For it would follow (o...
(Ibid.) "If you buy (lit.,) a servant Hebrew": Is Scripture speaking of a servant who is a Hebrew, or the servant of a Hebrew? And how am I to understand (Leviticus 25:46) "And you...
R. Eliezer says: This (inclusion) is not needed. If a Jew serves, how much more so a proselyte!—But perhaps (I would say) If a Jew serves six years, a proselyte should serve twelve...
"Six years shall he serve": I might think, both demeaning or non-demeaning service; it is, therefore, written (Ibid. 40) "as a hired laborer or a bound laborer." Just as you may no...
The Torah states that a Hebrew bondsman "shall go out free" on "the seventh" year. But the seventh year of what? The Mekhilta identified two possible readings and used a careful te...
When a Hebrew bondsman is released after six years, the Torah says "he shall go out to freedom." The Mekhilta asks: what does this phrase add? If the bondsman's term is over, he is...
(Exodus 21:3) introduces a condition for the Hebrew bondsman: "If alone he came, alone shall he go out." The Mekhilta uses this verse to determine whether a master is required or m...
Rabbi Akiva found a powerful protection for servants hidden in a verse that most readers would pass over quickly. The Torah says in (Exodus 21:3): "If alone he came, alone shall he...
For it is written (Ibid. 7) "And if a man sells his daughter as a maidservant, she shall not go out as the (Canaanite) bondsmen go out"—by (loss of) organ prominences, as the Canaa...
The Torah specifies that a Hebrew maidservant does not go free through the loss of "organ prominences" — external body parts like teeth or eyes that, if knocked out by the master, ...
(Exodus 21:3) states: "If he were the husband of a woman, his wife shall go out with him." The Mekhilta asks: what kind of woman is this verse talking about? It must be a Jewish wo...
The Torah states regarding a Hebrew servant: "then his wife shall go out with him." Rabbi Yitzchak read this verse and asked a brilliantly simple question that exposed a deeper leg...
Whence do we derive (the same for) the food of his children? From (Leviticus 25:41) "And he shall go out from you (in the Jubilee year), he and his children with him." From "going ...
The Torah addresses the case of a Hebrew servant whose master gives him a wife during his term of service. In (Exodus 21:4), the verse begins with the word "If" — "If his master gi...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael addresses a legal question about the identity of a wife given to a Hebrew servant by his master. The Torah states that if a master gives his servant "...
The Torah states that if a master gives his Hebrew bondsman a Canaanite bondswoman "and she bears him sons or daughters," the woman and her children belong to the master (Exodus 21...
"the woman and her children": What is the intent of this? That her children are (slaves) as she is. This tells me only of a bondswoman, that her children are as she is. Whence do I...
"and he shall go out alone": We are hereby apprised that a (Canaanite) bondswoman does not require a get (a divorce) from a Jew. Whence do we derive the same (i.e., that she does n...
"Six years shall he serve" — from this simple statement, the Mekhilta derives a ruling about sick bondsmen. If a Hebrew bondsman fell ill and was unable to work for the entire six-...
The Torah describes a Hebrew bondsman who declares: "I love my master, my wife, and my children — I will not go free" (Exodus 21:5). This bondsman chooses to stay, and his ear is p...
The Torah describes a remarkable scenario in the laws of servitude: a Hebrew servant whose term of service has ended, yet who declares, "I love my master" and chooses to remain. Th...
"and he shall bring him near to the door or to the door-post": The door is being compared to the door-post, viz.: Just as a door-post stands in its place, so, the door must be stan...
The Torah prescribes a vivid ritual for a Hebrew servant who refuses to go free after six years of service: "Then his master shall bore his ear" with an awl against a doorpost (Exo...
Where exactly on the ear is the bondsman pierced? The Mekhilta records a dispute between two authorities. Rabbi Yehudah said the piercing goes through the lobe — the soft, fleshy p...
"and he shall serve him forever": until the Jubilee year (Yovel). For it would follow otherwise, viz.: If money, whose "power" is formidable, and which acquires everything, acquire...
"and he shall serve him": him, and not his son. For it would follow (otherwise), viz.: If one (i.e., a Hebrew bondsman) who serves for six years, limited service, serves both him a...
