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Three days after his circumcision at age ninety-nine, Abraham sat in pain at the entrance of his tent. (Genesis 18:1-2) describes what happened next in language so compressed it hi...
(Genesis 18:22) contains one of the most famous scribal corrections in the Hebrew Bible. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 4:6 brings it out into the open. R. Simon read the verse a...
A king introduces himself first. "I am the king," he says, "and I have built this city." The name comes before the work. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 4:7 records Ben Azzai poin...
(Job 25:2) declares, "Dominion and awe are with Him. He makes peace in His high places." Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 13:2 reads this as a window into the celestial pecking ord...
Like there's a surface narrative, and then... something deeper, waiting to be uncovered? That's precisely what the ancient sages believed about the Torah. They saw layers upon laye...
Philo, the great Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, grappled with this very idea centuries ago. In his writings, often called "The Midrash of Philo" by scholars, he touches upon the...
