Fire and Revelation in Song of Songs Rabbah
About This Entry
In Song of Songs Rabbah 1:10:2, Ben Azai is pictured teaching Torah while fire surrounds him. Rabbi Akiva suspects he is engaged in mystical speculation, but Ben Azai explains that the fire comes from weaving texts together—stringing verses from Torah, Prophets, and Writings. This practice of connecting one text to another across books of the Bible makes his study as sweet and powerful as revelation at Sinai, when Torah was first given in fire. The story dramatizes a rabbinic conviction: that interpretation itself can reenact revelation. By connecting scripture across layers of tradition, the rabbis found joy, authority, and divine presence in the act of study.
Ben Azai was sitting and expounding and fire was surrounding him. They went and told R. Akiva, “Rabbi, Ben Azai is sitting and expounding, and fire is burning around him. [R. Akiva] went to him and said to him, “I heard that you were expounding and fire was burning around you.” He said to [R. Akiva], “Yes.” [R. Akiva] said to him, “Perhaps you were engaged in the esoterica of the divine chariot?” He said to [R. Akiva], “No, but rather I was sitting and stringing together matters of Torah, from Torah to Prophets, and from Prophets to Writings, and the matters were as joyful as when they were given from Sinai, and as sweet as when they were first given.”
Translated by Joshua Schreier.
Credits
Song of Songs Rabbah 1:10:2, from The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022, trans. Joshua Schreier, ed. Michael Siev and Yaacov Francus, https://www.sefaria.org. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) License.
Discussion Questions
Why is fire used as the image for Ben Azai’s teaching?
How does linking verses across scripture create new meaning?
What does it mean to say that study can be like Sinai itself?
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