scholarly journals A Conceptual Commentary on Midrash Leviticus Rabbah

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Leviticus Rabbah

A Short History of the People Israel from the Patriarchs to the Messiah

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-207
Author(s):  
Beth A. Berkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Early Period ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Sexual Practice ◽  
Short History ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Rich Variety ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Leviticus Rabbah ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of

This article addresses recent arguments that question whether “Judaism,” as such, existed in antiquity or whether the Jewishness of the Second Temple period should be characterized in primarily ethnic terms. At stake is the question of whether it is appropriate to speak of Judaism as an abstract system or religion in this early period. An appeal to the under-used collections of Midrash Aggadah provides the context for new insights, focused around a pericope in Leviticus Rabbah that is preoccupied with this very question. This parashah goes well beyond the ethnicity/ religion binary, producing instead a rich variety of paradigms of Jewish identity that include moral probity, physical appearance, relationship to God, ritual life, political status, economics, demographics, and sexual practice.

scholarly journals The Animalistic Gullet and the Godlike Soul: Reframing Sacrifice in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah

AJS Review ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Balberg
Keyword(s):  
Early Christian ◽  
Leviticus Rabbah

This article proposes an analysis of two homiletic units in the Palestinian Midrash Leviticus Rabbah, which revolve around biblical chapters pertaining to sacrifices. A theme that pervades these units is that of eating as an animalistic activity that often entails moral depravity. In contrast, the act of sacrificing is constructed in these units as one in which one is willing to give up one's own nourishment, and in a sense one's own “soul,” in order to offer it to God. Many of the motifs used to vilify eating in the Midrash can be traced in moralistic Greek, Roman, and early Christian diatribes preaching for moderation in eating or for asceticism; the homilists in Leviticus Rabbah, however, utilize these popular motifs in order to present sacrifice as the spiritual contrary of eating, and thus to give the obsolete practice of sacrifice cultural cachet and compelling meanings.

“The Same Fate Is in Store for the Righteous and the Wicked:” Form and Content in Midreshei Aggadah

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-77
Author(s):  
Arnon Atzmon
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oral Discourse ◽  
Subsequent Evolution ◽  
Approaches To Studying ◽  
Leviticus Rabbah ◽  
Sitz Im Leben ◽  
The One ◽  
Flexible Model

Abstract Over the years, scholars have adopted two parallel approaches to studying midrash aggadah. One approach, investigates questions relating to the compilations themselves, and the other approach focuses on the composition of the smaller, nuclear, midrashic units. The petiḥta or proem has been studied extensively by adherents of both approaches. In this paper, I argue that a flexible model is the one most appropriate for describing the petiḥta: a model which simultaneously utilizes both approaches. In the course of this paper, I studied one derasha, a petiḥta, and its subsequent evolution in several different compositions (Leviticus Rabbah; Tanḥuma Aharei Mot; Tanḥuma Va-Etchanan). By conducting that comparative study of the derasha, I achieved a fuller understanding of it both in terms of the proem as a product of oral discourse and in terms of the proem’s literary redaction within the context of the midrashic compositions. Ultimately, a better understanding of the petiḥta’s formulation and its Sitz im Leben contributes to our understanding of its contents and allows us to reveal the message that either the darshan or the redactor was attempting to convey.

Literary Structures and Historical Reconstruction: The Example of an Amoraic Midrash (Leviticus Rabbah)

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER SAMELY
Keyword(s):  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Leviticus Rabbah ◽  
Functional Position

This chapter examines historical reconstruction and literary structures of rabbinic texts using the Leviticus Rabbah as an example. It explains that Leviticus Rabbah is a commentary on the Book of Leviticus which now forms part of Midrash Rabbah. It proposes ten theses about the special problems which the literary structures of rabbinic texts pose for the historian and analyses a section of the amoraic work of Leviticus Rabbah to describe some of those literary structures. The findings suggest that it is impossible to explain how the textuality of rabbinic sources worked and that many rabbinic works fill the same functional position in a text more than once.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document