World of Medrash
by Rabbi Aaron Zimmer
World of Medrash uncovers the hidden narrative beneath the Chumash by reading Rashi and Midrash as a unified, unfolding story. I follow the clues left by Rashi, Chazal, and the psukim to reveal deeper patterns, surprising insights, and the mysteries that shape the Torah’s characters and events. Instead of treating Rashi as scattered comments, each episode shows how his choices create a coherent picture that brings the story behind the story to life. If you want to understand the deeper world that Chazal saw within the text, this show opens the door.
Episodes
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S7E7: A Good Happy Life
This shiur is Koheles with Rashi, but it's not quite the World of Medrash. I thought it was worth including anyway.
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S7E6: Eliyahu at Har Carmel
A look at a unique moment in history
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S7E5: The Paradigm of Sin and Teshuva — David, Avigail, and Batsheva
Based on Gemaras and Rashi, and grounded in the philosophical issues raised in Rambam's Hilchos Teshuva.
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S7E4: Dovid's Sin
This shiur is based on the Gemara Sanhedrin 107a, which deals with a medrash of how Dovid asked to be tested and then sinned.
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S7E3: Shaul's Original Sin
About how to relate to a King (as not a replacement of God)
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S7E2: Amalek and the Role of Evil
Why does Rashi say that Hashem told Yehoshua not to kill all of Amalek in the first war? What was the purpose of leaving evil around?
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S7E1: Menashe And Gideon
Two different shiurs somewhat connected
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Explaining the Worlds of Midrash and Halacha
This episode draws parallels between midrashei aggadah and halacha to explain and justify the idea of the World of Medrash and Rashi's role in it. Many of us grew up hearing midrashim as colorful additions to the stories of the Torah. As adults, we often wonder what to do with them. Are they…
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S6E6: The Animals in the Ark
There is a puzzling line in the Torah that most people skim right over. Before the flood, the psukim say that “all flesh had corrupted its ways.” Rashi explains this includes the animals. They were mating across species. That raises a difficult question. How can animals, who do not have bechirah,...
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S6E5: Why Noach Had Children So Late
The Torah gives us long lists of ages and lifespans, but every so often a detail appears that seems completely out of place. One of the most striking is Noach’s age when he finally has children. Almost every earlier figure becomes a parent in the range of sixty to one hundred. Then suddenly Noach...
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S6E4: The Tree of Life and Cherubim — According to the Rambam 2
This is the fourth shiur in the Gan Eden series
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S6E3: The Tree of Life and Cherubim in the World of Pshat and Remez 1
This is the third shiur in the Gan Eden series
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S6E2: Man’s Sin and the Snake in the Garden
The second shiur in the Gan Eden series that began with "Adam And Chava's Sin Of Removing the Clothes"
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S6E1: Adam And Chava's Sin Of Removing the Clothes
There is a detail in the opening chapters of Bereishit that almost everyone reads without noticing how strange it really is. The Torah says Adam and Chava were naked and not embarrassed. Later, after the sin, the Torah says God made them clothes. So why does Rashi insist that the clothing…
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S5E11: 10 Descents of the Shechinah and the Historical Particularization of Divine Providence 2
A continuation of the prior shiur
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S5E10: 10 Descents of the Shechinah and the Historical Particularization of Divine Providence 1
10 shiurs in 1. Actually, in 2.
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S5E9: The Tisha B’Av Civil War
A spin-off of Aharon's Egel and the Civil War
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S5E8: The Death of Korach
One of the strangest machlokot in Chazal revolves around a very simple question. How did Korach actually die? The pesukim seem clear that the earth swallowed him, yet the Gemara quotes Rabbi Yochanan saying he was not swallowed, not burned, and instead died in the plague the next day. How can…
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S5E7: Korach the Prophet
Most people know Korach as the ringleader of a rebellion. The Torah presents him as jealous, ambitious, and determined to undermine Moshe. But then the Midrash says something that changes the entire picture. It claims Korach had ruach hakodesh. How could Korach, of all people, be described as a...
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S5E6: Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam's Well
There is a moment in Parashat Chukat that feels familiar on the surface, yet the more you look at it, the stranger it becomes. Miriam dies, the water disappears, and Bnei Yisrael complain. That much we know. But then Rashi says something puzzling. The rock that supplied water for forty years...
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S5E5: Miriam's Death
What went wrong when Miriam died
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S5E4: Miriam's Sin and the Mob
Why did Moriam die at the end of the 40 years?
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S5E3: The Jewish Mob
About the sin of the meraglim
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S5E2: Israel vs Egypt
Parshas Eikev
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S5E1: The Framework of Sin
Mostly Rashi
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S4E9: The Menorah for Shevet Levi and Aharon
This should be listened to after the episode "The Menorah for Bnei Yisroel."
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S4E8: The Menorah for Bnei Yisroel
Using Medrash Tanchuma
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S4E7: The Wood Gatherer
A surprising discovery when you realize what Rashi's doing
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S4E6: Encountering the Shechinah
Fascinating combination of Chumash/Rashi and Halacha
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S4E5: Nadav and Avihu
Spin off of the central Rashi from "Kapparah through Moshe, Aharon, and the Mishkan"
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S4E4: Kapparah through Moshe, Aharon, and the Mishkan
The eighth day of the Mishkan’s inauguration should have been the most straightforward moment in the Torah. After seven days of preparation, Aharon brings every korban exactly as commanded, blesses the nation, and everyone waits for the Shechinah to descend. But nothing happens. Why would the...
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S4E3: Aharon's Egel and the Civil War 2
In this episode, which picks up from the prior one, I uncover the missing story behind those pesukim. Rashi brings a Midrash that reveals a shocking event that took place after Aharon’s death. The ananei hakavod departed, the nations saw Israel as vulnerable, and an attack triggered panic within...
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S4E2: Aharon's Egel and the Civil War 1
Every once in a while the Torah inserts a pasuk that seems completely out of place. In Sefer Devarim, Moshe is rebuking the people for the egel when the text suddenly breaks into a list of travels and announces that Aharon died in a place where he actually did not die. What is happening here? Why...
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S4E1: The Tragedy of Chur
There is a name that appears in the Torah only a handful of times, yet each appearance hints that he was one of the greatest leaders in our history. His name is Chur. We see him standing with Moshe and Aharon during the war with Amalek. We see him appointed again at Har Sinai as a judge for the...
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S3E17: Miracle Bread of Affliction
Why does the Torah spend so much time describing the mann? It is one of the longest sustained miracle stories in the Chumash, yet the more you read the pesukim, the stranger it becomes. Why did God insist on giving the mann only one day at a time? Why did it always look the same no matter what it...
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S3E16: Moshe’s Mistaken Musar
Why does the Torah present the story of the manna in such a confusing way? The pesukim move in circles, the order seems off, and even Moshe’s role feels strangely inconsistent. Why would Moshe, who always announces miracles in advance, fail to prepare Bnei Yisrael for the most important daily...
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S3E15: Nachshon By The Sea
About the sea splitting for Nachshon
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S3E14: Ten Makos and the Yam Suf
Were all 10 plagues really 7 days? What about the last one? Exploring the relationship between the 10 plagues and the splitting of the sea in the world of medrash.
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S3E13: Leaving Egypt
All Chumash/Rashi
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S3E12: The Aron Decimated the Leviim
Why was the tribe of Levi so small even in the first count before they started carrying the aron?
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S3E11: The Half-Successful, Half-Failed Redemption of Miriam, Aharon, and Moshe
This develops a few other shiurim that came before it, about the Failed Redemption, Dasan and Aviram, and the Death of the Wicked During the 3 Days of Darkness, and the Righteous Women shiur that is part of it too.
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S3E10: Righteous Women
Prequel to The Half Successful Half Failed Redemption
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S3E9: Wallowing in Thy Bloods
Mostly based on trying ot understand one Rashi that we read about every year in the Haggada.
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S3E8: Yisro and Moshe
What was Yosro's role? An interesting idea.
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S3E7: The Original Elders 2
Why They The Elders Replaced? In the second half of this story I turn to one of the most dramatic and least understood transitions in the Torah. The original zekeinim, the elders who stood at the burning bush and later climbed Har Sinai, eventually disappear completely. In their place, an…
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S3E6: The Original Elders 1
Who Were the Zekeinim? When the Torah first introduces the zekeinim, it does so quietly. They appear without explanation, already carrying authority, already trusted with Moshe’s earliest mission of redemption. But who were they? How did they become leaders? And why does the Torah bring them into...
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S3E5: Dasan and Aviram
Some characters in the Torah seem to appear only once, yet the Midrash treats them as if they have been shaping the story all along. Dasan and Aviram are one of the clearest examples. They enter the Chumash briefly, but Rashi and Chazal place them behind incident after incident, from Moshe’s...
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S3E4: The Failed Redemption by Moshe
What's the meaning of Moshe's first attempt to start the redemption at a young age?
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S3E3: Water, Blood, and the Astrologers
The Torah describes the astrologers of Egypt as people Pharaoh trusted with national decisions, yet their predictions are always strangely half right. They sense the general idea, but the details are wrong. How can that be? If astrology is nonsense, how did they know that the savior of the Jews...
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S3E2: Moshe the Glowing Baby
Famous Rashi that the house was filled with light when Moshe was born.
About this show
World of Medrash uncovers the hidden narrative beneath the Chumash by reading Rashi and Midrash as a unified, unfolding story. I follow the clues left by Rashi, Chazal, and the psukim to reveal deeper patterns, surprising insights, and the mysteries that shape the Torah’s characters and events. Instead of treating Rashi as scattered comments, each episode shows how his choices create a coherent picture that brings the story behind the story to life. If you want to understand the deeper world that Chazal saw within the text, this show opens the door.
Hosted by
Rabbi Aaron Zimmer
Categories