985 related texts · Page 66 of 110
The ancient rabbis certainly did. They grappled with questions of creation, divine presence, and the seeming paradoxes of faith. And sometimes, they used the most unexpected method...
Imagine this: the rakia, the firmament – that expanse we see as the sky – is like a gigantic pool of water. Above that pool, there's a dome. And because of this cosmic pool, you ge...
Rabbi Yoḥanan, a towering figure in the Talmudic era, offers a startling idea. He suggests that when God created the sea, He made a deal. A condition (tna’o in Hebrew) that it woul...
The passage opens with that foundational verse, Genesis 1:26: "And God said: Let us make Man in our image, in our likeness, and let them dominate…” But what does it mean? Rabbi Yoḥ...
Specifically, we're looking at Bereshit Rabbah 12. Rabbi Nehemya of Kefar Sihon starts us off by referencing Exodus 20:11: "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth,...
The Midrash, those collections of rabbinic commentaries and stories that expand on the Hebrew Bible, often offer surprising perspectives. Here, in Bereshit Rabbah, a midrash on the...
We get a glimpse into that, and a whole lot more about marriage, divorce, and forbidden relationships in this fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah 18. It all starts with the fa...
At least, that's what we learn from Bereshit Rabbah 21, a fascinating passage in the ancient rabbinic commentary on Genesis. Rav tells us that "in every place, the eastern directio...
The Torah tells us, "Cain departed from the presence of the Lord, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden" (Genesis 4:16). But where did he really go? The Rabbis of the Bereshit...
