Reading list/order for Judaism.

I have a general interest in Abrahamic Theology, and my happy place is anything mind numbingly lore heavy. With Christianity it’s pretty easy, you’ve got the Old Testament, the New Testament and The Apocrypha, if you wanna get fancy, as well as the general Christian philosophers. And if you want to get branded as a heretic you get into the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnostic stuff.

Judaism seems to be- from a outside glance, like a office that only the guy who works there knows where everything is. But even from reading the Bible you get hints of “oh this is referencing 17 different mad obscure things” or “there’s an in joke here that I’m not getting” yknow, there’s something missing and I’ve always (when it comes to literature) had an obsession with knowing

Which means I’m going to have to go out and buy all these books. Because while you can get some of them for free on the iPhone They seem to be watered down or weird. (Opened a weird copy of a collection of the midrash and was greeted with a cheerfully racist story of a Son and a Rabbi cheating a black slave out of his freedom and what was left to him in The Fathers will. First story too. Surreal experience being part of a really old historical black community and family.)

So I figured why not ask for some pointers here. I think there’s some temples around where I live, but they’re kinda obscure and my appearance is kinda frightening to non black people. So I’d rather not have to go through the obligatory: “im not here to rob you”/No officer I’m not casing the place.“ dance.