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Michelangelo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Judaic Studies | Classics | Studies in Religion | Philosophy | Brooklyn College Library

JUST/CLAS/RELG 3022 and PHIL 3729: Searching for God: Week 10: Rabbinic Judaism 3

Ancient Greeks, Jews, and Christians

Topic for the week

Topic: Rabbinic Judaism Part 3: The Midrashic Hermeneutic: Torah as Perfection

Primary Sources: Rabbinic Judaism 3

Professor will provide:

  • Polysemy in Midrash” (dropbox)
  • Song of Songs Rabbah 1:2 (dropbox),
  • Genesis Rabbah 22 (handout)


The prohibition against Cooking a kid in it’s Mother’s Milk:

Even the Oral Torah is said to have always already existed (cf. Plato’s anamnesis) (Deuteronomy 9:10) and the rabbinic interpretation on it attributed to R. Joshua b. Levi (3rd century, among others —

Speaking of Plato’s notion of the soul and anamnesis of the forms, the rabbis repeat almost the identical myth, only about the Torah instead of the forms:

Rare complete handwritten Torah Bible scroll. Deer skin. 150 years old. Morocco

Secondary Sources: Rabbinic Judaism 3