Midrash Rabba

Midrash Rabba or Midrash Rabbah can refer to part of or the collective whole of specific aggadic midrashim on the books of the Torah and the Five Megillot, generally having the term "Rabbah" (רבה‎), meaning "great," as part of their name.

This collection eventually came to be called "Midrash Rabbot" (i.e., "Midrash of the Rabbot"), to which the midrashim most in use in connection with prayers—to Shir HaShirim, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes—were subsequently added.

The editio princeps of the midrashim to the Pentateuch (Constantinople, 1512) begins with the words "Be-shem El atchil Bereshit Rabba" (In the name of God I shall begin Bereshit Rabbah), and the title of the editio princeps of the midrashim to the megillot (Pesaro, 1519) reads "Midrash Hamesh Megillot" (Midrash of the Five Megillot).

Still more inexact and misleading is the term "Midrash Rabbah to the Five Books of the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot," as found on the title-page of the two parts in the much-used Vilna edition.

According to Solomon Schechter, there are not even six manuscripts of the rabbot to the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot in existence.