4,128 texts · Page 70 of 86
A student was walking behind Rabbi Ishmael ben Yose. Another student was walking behind Rabbi Hamnana. Both students were following their teachers closely, learning by watching. Th...
Three young men apprenticed themselves to King Solomon for three years. When the term ended they approached the king, disappointed. They had seen wonders at court but believed they...
A man walking across a frozen field saw a snake lying stiff in the snow. Touched by pity, he picked up the creature, placed it inside his shirt against his chest, and continued on....
The old rabbis were poets of the short sentence. Here is a small anthology of proverbs preserved in the Midrash — each one a stone you can carry in your pocket. On speech: Op...
A merchant died in an inn, far from home, leaving a young son who was yet to reach manhood. When the son finally came of age, he set off to claim his father’s property from t...
The throne of King Solomon, the legend-weavers said, was a marvel of engineering and meaning. It was made entirely of gold, with thirty-three steps ascending to the seat. On every ...
The emperor Antoninus was a secret friend of Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah. They visited each other, but Rome could not know of it. Antoninus had an undergrou...
There was once an innkeeper who ran his business as a trap. Each night, deep in the small hours, he would wake his guests with false alarms — shouts of fire, of thieves, of s...
Rabbi Ishmael was known as a master of dream-interpretation. Two students with identical dreams could come to him and walk away with opposite readings, because Ishmael understood t...
The old collections preserve a small anecdote about a woman named Justina, daughter of Asverus, who was said to have been married at six years old and to have borne a child at seve...
The rabbis preserved a small, cutting anecdote about a wealthy pagan whose appetite had outgrown his reason. He sat down one evening at his fine marble dining table, which had been...
King Solomon once wrote in Ecclesiastes, “One man out of a thousand I have found, but a woman among all those I have not found” (Ecclesiastes 7:28). It was a line his m...
The Talmud in Gittin tells one of the strangest stories about King Solomon. The king, in his pride, once compelled Ashmedai, the chief of demons, to serve him. Through a chain of t...
Before he was king, Solomon was a young boy with a gift for untangling impossible lawsuits. The tradition collected in the Parables of Solomon preserves one such case. A wealthy an...
Naming is an act of authority. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 2:19), the Lord creates every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens and brings them to Adam "to see ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 4:22) gives us the first credits for human culture. Zillah bore Tubal-Cain, "the chief (rab) of all artificers who know the workmanship of brass ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 9:27) turns a brief blessing into a vision of the whole future of learning. The Lord shall beautify the borders of Japhet, and his sons shall be ...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 10:26) hides one of the loveliest details in the whole genealogy. Joktan begat Elmodad, who measured (or lined) the earth with lines; and Shaleph...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 11:6) preserves a sentence that has given interpreters trouble for centuries. God looks down at the builders of Babel and says: they will not be ...
The verse is almost administrative. Abram leaves Haran at seventy-five. Lot goes with him. The Targum in (Genesis 12:4) does not embroider — and that restraint is the whole lesson....
Listen to how Ephron performs generosity. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 23:11), the Hittite landowner makes his first move: the field I give thee, and the cave which is in ...
Eliezer is a wise servant. He foresees a problem before he sets out. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:5), the Aramaic renders his careful question: suppose the woman may no...
A careful reader notices the sequence. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 24:47), Eliezer describes what he did at the well in a very particular order. First, he asked Rivekah w...
The Torah's bookkeeping of Abraham's later life is precise. He had taken another wife after Sarah, Keturah, and by her and his concubines there were sons. The inheritance had to be...
This is one of the Targum's most surprising explanations. Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:11) asks the question the Torah leaves hanging: why, in all the final chapters of his life,...
Here is a verse that looks like an accounting entry until you notice what the numbers are doing. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:20) records that Isaac was forty years old wh...
Some births announce their children. Esau's birth, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:25), announces an entire character. "The first came forth wholly red, as a garment of ha...
The second twin emerged differently. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 25:26) gives the detail plainly: "Afterward came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on the heel of Esa...
The Torah tells us Jacob told Rachel he was her kinsman (Genesis 29:12). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan fills in a conversation between them. Jacob explained to Rachel that he had come...
In the plain Torah, Laban hears that Jacob has arrived and runs to meet him (Genesis 29:13). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan unpacks exactly what Laban had already heard — and the list ...
Laban tried to buy him off. What shall I give thee? he asked — the question of a man who believes everything has a price (Genesis 30:31). Jakob, in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's telling...
The offer Jakob put on the table sounded like a bad deal on purpose. I will pass through thy whole flock today, he said to Laban, and will set apart every lamb streaked and spotted...
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan names the trees: flowering poplar, almond, and plane (Genesis 30:37). Jakob did not pick the first branch at hand. He chose three specific species, each one ...
Jakob knew exactly where to set the peeled rods — in the canals, in the troughs of water, at the one place where the flocks were certain to gather (Genesis 30:38). Targum Pseudo-Jo...
As the marked lambs began to appear, Jakob did not mix them back in. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is precise: he set them apart, placed them in front of the remaining flocks, and then qu...
Here is the detail most readers miss. Jakob did not set the peeled rods in the troughs every time. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains that he brought them out only when the early, the...
The house turned cold long before anyone said a word out loud. Jakob heard the words of the sons of Laban — not spoken to him, but about him (Genesis 31:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ...
Once the angel had clipped his wings, Laban arrived the next morning wearing the mask of a wounded host. Why didst thou hide from me that thou wouldst go, and steal my knowledge, a...
Rahel sat on the camel's saddle where the idols lay hidden, and when her father entered she said the words that ended the search: Let it not be displeasing in my lord's eyes that I...
Jacob was a strategist, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the tactical cleverness of his gift to Esau (Genesis 32:17). He did not send one large herd. He sent flock after flock,...
Jacob knew Esau would ask three questions, so he wrote the answers in advance. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the briefing given to the first servant in the caravan (Genesis 32:1...
"According to these words you must speak with Esau when you find him." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan repeats the instruction three times (Genesis 32:20) — first servant, second servant, t...
Jacob lifted his eyes and saw what he had feared for twenty years: Esau, and with him four hundred men of war (Genesis 33:1). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not soften the number. Fou...
Esau offered to travel alongside Jacob, and Jacob declined. The reason he gave, preserved in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Genesis 33:13), sounds like a note from a shepherd's almanac. "...
The Torah drops a cryptic detail in the middle of an Edomite genealogy: this is Anah who found the yemim in the wilderness. For two thousand years, readers have argued about what y...
The Torah lists the kings of Edom in a dry procession: Bela died, Jobab reigned, Jobab died, Husham reigned, and so on. It is one of those passages readers tend to skim. But Targum...
The butler and baker give Joseph the standard complaint of prisoners in an ancient city. They have dreamed, and there is no court interpreter available in their cell. The Targum pr...
The Targum preserves the exact phrasing of Pharaoh's summons. I have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter for it; and I have heard of thee, saying, that if thou hear a drea...
