Abstract
In this extraordinary feminist literary critical analysis, newly translated from the Hebrew, Inbar Raveh teases out meanings hidden within a critically important genre of rabbinic literature known as midrash. Produced by rabbis from the first century ce through medieval times and widely dispersed, midrash consists of narrative and sermonic rabbinic commentaries, many of which reflect ancient oral traditions that go back millennia. Mid rash may be divided broadly into Talmudic midrash from Babylonia and Palestine, which is interspersed with legal discussions in the Mishna and Gemara; midrash halakha—primarily legal works contemporaneous with the Mishna such as the Mekhilta; and