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The Torah gives us a tantalizing glimpse in the second chapter of Genesis: "A river emerged from Eden to water the garden; and from there it parted and became four headwaters" (Gen...
And one powerful image used to describe this cycle is the idea of a "cup of terror." The Midrash, specifically Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Ge...
We all know the story: paradise, temptation, the apple, the fall. But before all that went down, there's this single verse in Genesis 2:15: "The Lord God took the man and placed hi...
It seems simple enough on the surface: "From every tree of the garden you may eat." But, like with so much in Torah, the rabbis saw layers upon layers of meaning hidden beneath the...
And, according to Jewish tradition, Adam, the very first human, had the unique privilege of naming… well, just about everything! We find this idea in the book of Genesis (2:19): "T...
Take, for example, the verse in Genesis 2:21, "He took one of his sides [mitzalotav]..." Now, mitzalotav can mean either "one of his ribs" or "one of his sides." So, which was it? ...
The story goes that a noblewoman, clearly not shy about asking tough questions, once approached Rabbi Yosei. "Why," she demanded, "did God create Eve as if by theft? Why take Adam'...
The ancient rabbis did! And they weren't shy about asking some pretty direct questions. Let's take a peek into a fascinating passage from Bereshit Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic ...
The Torah tells us, "The Lord God built the side that He had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man" (Genesis 2:22). Simple. But as is so often the case, our s...
