ABSTRACT
This essay discusses three kinds of creative responses to the problematics of wonder from within the rabbinic tradition. The first is the response of a certain strand in homiletical (Midrashic) discourse from early medieval Jewish culture, the second is taken from liturgical poetry of medieval times and the third comprises a brief encounter with a poem by 20th-century Israeli poet Zelda. These specific texts cannot represent the vast tradition of Jewish response to wonder, but they point to a persistently ambivalent attitude towards scriptural wonder, especially towards wonder expressed in poetic form.
