"As for the sixth firmament, its storehouses are full of honey. Within is the place prepared for the spirits of the righteous. Light and fire encompass it and within are myriads, thousands upon thousands, and armies and encampments (of angels) standing in awe and trembling. And on the head of each of them is (what) appears as a crown of fire, and their fire has the appearance of gold. The regiments of the army march within (the sixth firmament), and their strength is like an inextinguishable fire and they are in fear from dread of their rulers. For two officers rule over them, one in the west of the (sixth) firmament and one in the east. And before the armies of spirits are myriads of angels created from flame and burning like fire. Their bodies are like fiery coals and upon coals of fire is their station. And they tremble and shake to sing forth songs and praises to the Exalted One of the Universe, who has prepared them to praise His honor and honor His praise."

"The fifth firmament is exceedingly exalted. It is magnificent in appearance, for within it are clouds of splendor. It is filled with angels of majesty, and within it (their knees) knock with fear. They are stationed in troop after troop, glorifying (the One) who carved them into flame. The sound of their running is like the crashing of the sea, and their walk is like wheels of thunder. Therein, moreover, are twelve princes of glory seated upon magnificent thrones, the appearance of their thrones is like that of fire. They quarter the heavens at the middle by facing the four directions of the world, three by three toward each direction. And (the) angels run when they send them, and their roaring shakes the world. Lightnings issue from their breath and they have wings of fire and are wreathed with crowns of fire, and the (fifth) firmament shines from the lustre of their faces. They are in charge of the twelve months of the year and understand what will be in each and every month, and without them nothing can happen, for they were created for this. Each is stationed over his month since they make known month by month that which will be in each and every year."

"If you wish to see the sun during the night, proceeding (on his course) in the north, purify (yourself) for three weeks of days from all (impure) food and drink, and from every unclean thing. Then stand during the third hour in the night watches, wrapped in white garments, and say twenty-one times the name of the sun and the names of the angels that lead him at night, and then say: I adjure you, angels that fly through the air of the firmament, ... I adjure you, that you will make known to me this great miracle that I desire, and that I may see the sun in his power in the (celestial) circle (traversed by) his chariot, and let no hidden thing be too difficult for me."

"The third firmament is filled with storerooms of mist from which the winds go forth, and inside it are encampments of thunder from which lightning emanates. Within, three princes sit on their thrones; they and their raiment have an appearance like fire and the appearance of their thrones is like fire, fire that gleams like gold, for they rule over all the angels of fire. They are like fire in their strength and their voices are like the roar of a peal of thunder. And their eyes are like sunbeams, and they rule over the wheels of flame and fire. Moreover, they have wings to fly. The whinnying of their mouths is as horses, their appearance like torches; when they speak they cause trembling, when they shout they cause weakness. They soar in every direction and fly to every corner (of the world)."

"The second firmament is called "heaven of heavens." In it are frost and fog and treasuries of snow and treasuries of hail, angels of fire and angels of moisture and spirits of terror and spirits of dread. The firmament is full of fear, for within it are innumerable angels constituting armies upon armies and over them are officers and overseers. Within the firmament are twelve steps and on each and every step stand angels in their splendor, and over them is one high official over another. Nevertheless, for human affairs, they are obedient to everyone who approaches them in purity."

"The seventh firmament, all of it is sevenfold light, and from its light all the (seven) heavens shine. Within it is the throne of glory, set on the four glorious Ḥayot, Also within it are the storehouses of lives, and the storehouses of souls. There is no calculation or limit to the great light within it, and the fullness of the light illumines all the earth."

"Holy Helios who rises in the east, good mariner, trustworthy leader of the sun's rays, reliable (witness), who of old didst establish the mighty wheel (of the heavens), holy orderer, ruler of the axis (of the heaven). Lord, Brilliant Leader, King, Soldier. I, N son of N, present my supplication before you, that you will appear to me without (causing me) fear, and you will be revealed to me without causing me terror, and you will conceal nothing from me and will tell me truthfully all that I desire."

"The name of the first firmament is called Shamayim. Within it are encampments filled with wrath. And seven thrones are prepared there and upon them are seated overseers, and around them on all sides encampments (of angels) are stationed and are obedient to men at the time when they practice (magic), to everyone who has learned to stand and pour (libations) to their names and cite them by their signs at the period when (prayer) is heard (so as) to make a magical rite succeed. (Over) all these encampments of angels these seven overseers rule, to dispatch (them) for every (sort of) business so that they will hasten and bring success."

"The fourth firmament is pitched upon a storm wind, and stands on pillars of fire, and is held up by crowns of flame, and full of treasuries of strength, also storehouses of dew. As each of its corners are swift angels running with each other, prancing, prancing."

"It was by mere chance that the Cairo Geniza was forgotten and its contents so escaped the fate of other Genizas. These old writings have been saved quite contrary to the intention of those who stored them there. When in the course of the last century the Cairo Geniza was rediscovered, the men in charge of the Synagogue to which it belonged made the surprising discovery that there were some queer people in the world who were attracted by the old material, who were willing to pay considerable sums of money for these scraps of dirty parchment and paper, and that even famous universities were keenly interested in the matter."

"We are mistaken in thinking that Jewish liturgy has been around for millennia in precisely its current form. The documents of the Cairo Genizah remind us that ancient words never stagnate. Often imperceptibly, sometimes violently, ancient Jewish rituals move and shift and create new realities in each generation. They are the liturgical tectonic plates of the Jewish world."

"After Schechter had climbed a rickety ladder to reach that dim attic-like opening, and once his widening eyes had adjusted to the dark, he found himself staring into a space crammed to bursting with nearly ten centuries' worth of one Middle Eastern, mostly middle-class Jewish community's detritus—its letters and poems, its wills and marriage contracts, its bills of lading and writs of divorce, its prayers, prescriptions, trousseau lists, Bibles, money orders, amulets, court depositions, shop inventories, rabbinic responsa, contracts, leases, magic charms, and receipts."

"It is a battlefield of books, and the literary productions of many centuries had their share in the battle, and their disjecta membra are now strewn over its area."

"And there was in the sanctuary a foundation-stone—and this is its interpretation: God founded it and this is the stone on which Jacob poured oil—and on it were written the letters of the Shem, and whosoever learned it, could do whatsoever he would. ... This Jeschu came, learned them, wrote them on parchment, cut into his hip and laid the parchment with the letters therein—so that the cutting of his flesh did not hurt him—then he restored the skin to its place. ... He went home, cut open his flesh with his knife, took out the writing, learned the letters, went and gathered together three hundred and ten of the young men of Israel."

"The Gospels tell how Jesus performed miracles; the author of the Tol'doth Yeshu also tells us so, but while the former say that he performed them by the help of the Holy Spirit, the latter says that he performed them through the "Ineffable Name," which he had learnt for an evil purpose, and through the magic spells which he had brought from Egypt."

"The people of Galilee made birds out of clay; he uttered the letters of the Shem, and the birds flew away."

"Yeshu came and learned the letters of the Name; he wrote them upon the parchment which he placed in an open cut on his thigh and then drew the flesh over the parchment. As he left, the lions roared and he forgot the secret. But when he came to his house he reopened the cut in his flesh with a knife and lifted out the writing. Then he remembered and obtained the use of the letters."

"In the Sefer Toledot Yeshu, an anti-Christian rabbinical compilation, we find a singular parable: Yeshu, says the rabbinic author of the legend, was traveling with Simon Bar-Jonah and Judas Iscariot. They arrived late and tired at an isolated house; they were very hungry and could find nothing to eat aside from a very small and thin young goose. ... "Let us sleep first," said Yeshu, "while our meal cooks; when we wake we will tell each other our dreams, and he who had the most beautiful dream will eat the little goose all for himself." ... "I," said Saint Peter, "I dreamed that I was the vicar of God." "I," said Yeshu, "that I was God himself." "And I," Judas responded hypocritically, "I dreamed that while sleepwalking I got up and went quietly downstairs, removed the goose from its spit, and ate it." After this they all went downstairs, but the goose had in fact disappeared: Judas had dreamed while completely awake."

"He spoke the Ineffable Name over the birds of clay and they flew into the air."

"Miriam gave birth to a son and named him Yehoshua, after her brother. This name later deteriorated to Yeshu."

"The Jewish legends in regard to Jesus are found in three sources, each independent of the others—(1) in New Testament apocrypha and Christian polemical works, (2) in the Talmud and the Midrash, and (3) in the life of Jesus ("Toledot Yeshu") that originated in the Middle Ages. It is the tendency of all these sources to belittle the person of Jesus by ascribing to him illegitimate birth, magic, and a shameful death."

"Interlinear Hebrew Bible on BibleHub.com"

"Tanakh on Sefaria.org"

"Torah study"

"Hebrew–English Bible on Mechon-Mamre.org"

"Whenever it is a question of the eternal truths of reason, it does not say believe, but understand and know."

"Biblical scholars maintain that the vast majority of the written materials that comprise the Hebrew Bible began as traditions communicated from generation to generation by word of mouth and by the example of how people lived daily. Only gradually were these stories, ideas, and practices committed to writing in what we know as the Hebrew Bible."

"There is scant archaeological or related textual evidence to support any of these putative episodes of genocide described in the Hebrew Bible as historical events. But more important than the historicity of the described destruction of peoples and towns is the fact that the biblical rendition of genocide reveals what men and women of antiquity believed was possible, even likely, in the relations between nations, while at the same time setting precedents, patterns, and norms for the future. The leaders of the Hebrews—Moses, Samuel, Saul, David, and Joshua—implemented the will of God to commit mass murder. Sometimes, the killing was in righteous retribution for alleged acts committed against the Hebrews. But most often, peoples were attacked and eliminated because they lived in the land that God had promised to the Hebrews. Those eliminated were blamed for their own fate, a widespread phenomenon in mass killing that has repeated itself over the centuries. Sometimes, women and children were spared as slaves and concubines, or even taken as wives."

"Masoretic Text"

"וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִים הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי בָא אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתִּי לָהֶם אֱלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵיכֶם שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם וְאָמְרוּ־לִי מַה־שְּׁמוֹ מָה אֹמַר אֲלֵהֶם׃ וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה וַיֹּאמֶר כֹּה תֹאמַר לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶהְיֶה שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם׃}}"

"וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָם׃}}"

"אָנֹכִי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִ͏ים׃ לֹא־יִהְיֶ͏ה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָ͏ַי׃}}"

"The problem of reading the Holy Book—if you have faith that it is the Word of God—is the most difficult problem in the whole field of reading. There have been more books written about how to read Scripture than about all other aspects of the art of reading together. The Word of God is obviously the most difficult writing men can read; but it is also, if you believe it is the Word of God, the most important to read. The effort of the faithful has been duly proportionate to the difficulty of the task. It would be true to say that, in the European tradition at least, the Bible is the book in more senses than one. It has been not only the most widely read, but also the most carefully read, book of all."

"שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהֹוָה אֶחָד׃}}"

"In the Old Testament stories, ... the sublime influence of God here reaches so deeply into the everyday that the two realms of the sublime and the everyday are not only actually unseparated but basically inseparable."

"The Christians wrested the Old Testament out of the hands of the Jews and used it as a weapon against them. The belief in their own selection by God was turned into an expression of the absolute and exclusive position of Christianity, and Jewish Messianism was twisted into the doctrine of Christ's return."

"Although Orthodox Jews believe that the whole Torah was revealed by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, Conservative and Reform Jews accept the conclusions of biblical scholarship that the Torah consists of documents originating in oral traditions and committed to writing between the eleventh and sixth centuries BC, and edited together by the time of Ezra (mid-fifth century BC). Some later strands of the Torah interpret earlier strands, and this process of creating new interpretations and applications of earlier materials and new traditions altogether in the latter centuries of the biblical period and after the close of the biblical canon constitutes what we know as Rabbinic literature."

"The Bible is an incomparable book. Millions of people have devoted a major portion of their lives to Bible study. Hundreds of thousands of books have been written about the subject, and we now have ready access to dozens of translations and dozens of commentaries. The Bible is an inexhaustible resource that has been challenging people's minds and hearts for centuries."

"Halakhic man, well furnished with rules, judgments, and fundamental principles, draws near the world with an a priori relation. His approach begins with an ideal creation and concludes with a real one. To whom may he be compared? To a mathematician who fashions an ideal world and then uses it for the purpose of establishing a relationship between it and the real world. ... The essence of the Halakhah, which was received from God, consists in creating an ideal world and cognizing the relationship between that ideal world and our concrete environment."

"Samuel b. Jacob, who copied the Leningrad Codex, declares expressly that he had copied the Codex from several correct and clear codices which had been prepared by the master Aaron b. Moses b. Asher."

"There is no need to defend the use of the Leningrad Codex B19A (L) as the basis for an edition of the Hebrew Bible, whatever one may think of its relationship to the Ben Asher text. P. Kahle's own views on the matter may be consulted in his book The Cairo Geniza (Oxford, 1959, 2nd edition). In any event, L is still "the oldest dated manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible.""

"Samuel ben Jacob wrote and pointed and provided with Masora this codex of the Holy Scriptures from the corrected and annotated books prepared by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher the teacher, may his rest be in the Garden of Eden!"

"A certain Samuel b. Jacob copied this Standard Codex of Ben-Asher for Meborach Ibn Osdad. This very important copy is now in the Imperial Public Library at St. Petersburg."

"It comprises the single most complete source of all of the Bible books which is closest to the Ben Asher tradition."

"The pointing was done with special care, and it was regarded as a model codex; it was to be used liturgically only on the feasts of Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles, and otherwise used only for consultation by scholars to settle matters of doubt, and not for study."

"Damage to the Aleppo Codex (Halab), the earliest Hebrew Old Testament, has been found to have been caused by a member of the genus Aspergillus, rather than fire."

"There is no doubt that in its closeness to the tradition ascribed to ben Asher, and also in its accuracy and consistency, this manuscript must be considered superior to all other Tiberian manuscripts known to us. It is, therefore, the most important representative of the standard Tiberian tradition."

"The Aleppo Codex is indeed the book upon which Maimonides relied, and the ancient tradition regarding its lineage is confirmed."

"No manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, apart from those discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, has been the subject of so heated a discussion as our Codex."

"One usually assumes that the book on which Maimonides relied was the Aleppo Codex. Ostensibly, this seems likely enough. Yet I permit myself to doubt it for technical reasons which this is not the place to set out in detail."