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We get a glimpse, a tiny peek behind the curtain, in Genesis 1:31: “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. It was evening and it was morning, the sixth...
According to ancient Jewish wisdom, the answer is a resounding yes! Take Bar Sira, for example. He taught that God created medicines from the earth, empowering physicians to heal a...
That feeling, that’s something the ancient rabbis wrestled with too. Our story begins with a seemingly simple verse from Genesis 2:4: “These are the toledot (outgrowths, generation...
According to some of our oldest texts, rain isn’t just water falling from the sky. It’s something far more profound. Rabbi Hoshaya, a sage from the Talmudic era, makes a pretty bol...
They envisioned something far grander than just a single tree. Imagine a tree so immense, so vital, that it’s said the life force of all people emanates from it! A single source, n...
An apple? Maybe… but our tradition offers a whole orchard of possibilities! The rabbis of the Midrash, in Bereshit Rabbah 15, really sink their teeth into this question. Rabbi Meir...
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...
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...
