More Midrash is a passion project.
As a Jew and a rabbi, I consider the universe of Jewish text my home. But I haven’t explored every corner yet. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) forms the bedrock of Jewish literature, our most sacred canon. Chazal, the sages of early rabbinic Judaism, read the Hebrew Bible closely – and noticed that it contained ambiguities, inconsistencies, hidden motivations and backstories, and grammatical oddities. And so, they created midrash.
Midrash is a genre of writing in which the sages respond to problems or possibilities within the biblical text. “A midrash” refers as well to a discrete unit within that genre, and there are multiple collections of midrashim (the plural of midrash). For me, midrash is also a worldview.
Because midrash prioritizes imagination over consistency, there will often be two, three, or more interpretations of what any given verse might mean. The world is bigger, more beautiful, more open to possibility through the lens of midrash. There’s always another perspective to ponder.
And that’s why I am always seeking to learn and share More Midrash. Expect regular seasons focusing on Bereishit Rabbah, a midrashic collection on the book of Bereishit/Genesis, to drop each fall, when that book is read in the yearly Torah cycle. And occasional one-off episodes or short series will appear during the rest of the year.
Jay Asher LeVine
