parsha bit: Chayei Sarah

[cellio]

When the torah tells us about Yitzchak's marriage to Rivka, it says he married her and he loved her. The rabbis pick up on that ordering. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch teaches that this is because the wedding should not be the summit of the relationship but, rather, the seed of future love.

My usual tertiary sources failed me this week; I was looking for midrash on the portion, not commentary. Is there a collection of midrash bits, sorted by theme or (ideally) parsha, akin to Baron's quotations? It seems like a handy tool for enhancing sermons.

Comments

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

There are collections of midrashim ordered by pasuk (roughly - often they connect to a section rather than a specific verse, so the bit you want might be ordered a little before/after you'd expect 'cause that's where the author/editor thought it belonged). Bereshit Rabbah is one for bereshit and similar ones exist for various other books, generally with titles of the form "*name of book* Rabbah".

A quick poke at amazon.com (search for "midrash") lists a while bunch of Midrash Rabbah books of various lengths and prices...