Dr. Barry Dov Walfish

After the flood, God tells Noah that He set His bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of His covenant with humankind. But if the rainbow is a natural phenomenon, as Aristotle claimed, did it not exist before the flood? This scientific problem offers a window into how medieval commentators sought to reconcile the science of their time with the Bible.

The products of a period in which Judaism was considered to have been superseded by Christianity and Jews were treated as inferiors, the Talmud and Toledot Yeshu literature developed a biting, farcical retelling of Jesus’ story, which, at the same time, reveals the Jewish struggle to explain his massive impact on world religion. Yet, medieval rabbis also responded to Jesus’ death in a serious way, noting that ultimately, things turned out for the best: Jesus always planned to be crucified, and Jesus asked God to forgive everyone involved.   

From a shadowed queen in the third-century synagogue frescoes of Dura-Europos to a defiant heroine recast in the shadow of the Holocaust, Esther’s image has never stood still. Across centuries of Jewish art—medieval manuscripts, early modern megillot, linocuts, mosaics, and mystical modern paintings—artists have reshaped her image from demure beauty to decisive leader. Each generation paints the Esther it needs.

Known by the acronym Pardes, four approaches—peshat, the literal, remez, the philosophical-allegorical, derash, the midrashic-allegorical, and sod, the mystical—can be found not only in commentaries on the Song of Songs but also in a variety of musical settings.

Chesed, lovingkindness, is a major theme in the book of Ruth. And yet, the rabbis have little sympathy for Orpah. To the contrary!

Why does Esau in Jewish tradition come to be known as עשו הרשע “Esau the Wicked”? The answer has to do with the history of Judea’s relationship with Esau’s eponymous descendants, the Edomites, and the connection Jews made between them, Rome, and Christianity. The negative view of Esau is expressed nowhere more forcefully than in Rashi’s commentary.

The Song of Songs is a collection of love poetry. The Rabbis read it as an allegory of the relationship between God and the Jewish people. Only in the Middle Ages, in Spain and Northern France, did scholars begin to pay attention to the plain (Peshat) meaning of the text. Some went as far as dropping the allegory altogether and treating it as love poetry, as it was originally intended.