ESSAYS MIDRASH AND MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION

i. i Shevu

Midrash and Midrashic Interpretation

It is often remarked that what is Jewish about by his name, "had dedicated himself to study the is not the Bible itself, not even the the Teaching () of the LORD so as to ob­ Hebrew text of the Bible, but the Jewish inter­ serve it" (Ezra 7.10). The Hebrew word for pretation of the Bible. And of all the types of "study" used in the verse, lidrosh, has the Jewish biblical interpretation, none have been same root as midrash. By late antiquity, identified so closely with the Jewish Bible as midrash had come to designate Bible study in midrash. Indeed, the two have been so closely general. The called their academy a bet identified that for some, midrash has become midrash, literally "a house of study," and from a virtual trope for , a figure for all that such usage, midrash came to be the term the is distinctive and different about the , Rabbis themselves employed to designate the their , and culture. way they studied Scripture and interpreted its Midrash is the specific name for the activity meaning. of biblical interpretation as practiced by the In its primary sense, then, midrash refers to Rabbis of the in the first five cen­ an activity, a mode of study. Somewhat con­ turies of the . The Hebrew word fusingly, the same word is also applied to the derives from the root, d-r-sh, which literally products of that activity, namely, individual means "to inquire" or "to search after." In the interpretations-a specific midrash of a verse earlier books of the Bible, the root is used to or word, for example. These midrashic inter­ refer to the act of seeking out God's will (e.g., pretations originally circulated and were Gen. 25.22; Exod. 18.15), particularly through transmitted orally, both in rabbinic schools consulting a figure like or a prophet and through sermons. Around the or another type of oracular authority. By the 3rd or 4th century CE, the oral traditions of the t end of the biblical period, the locus for that Rabbis began to be collected in literary an­ i t search appears to have settled on the text of thologies, and these collections also came to the Torah where, it was now believed, God's be known as midrashim, as in Midrash Rab­ will for the present moment was to be found. bah, the folio-sized collection of homiletical Thus the scribe Ezra, we are told in the book midrashim on the Torah which was first pub- JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE ESSAYS lished in Constantinople in 1512. For the past to study (lidrosfl) its meaning properly" (Gen. hundred years, however, some scholars have Rab. 1:14). The imperative facing every Bible appropriated the word "midrash" as a collec­ interpreter is, to paraphrase E. M. Forster, to tive term to describe ancient biblical interpre­ connect, to find the text's significance for the tation in general. For example, the French present moment, to make it speak to us now. scholar Renee Bloch used the term "midrash" Nothing in the Bible is without such signifi­ to describe any ancient "meditation on the sa­ cance. If the interpreter can't find it, the fault cred texts," an activity that could be found is his or her own, not the Bible's. Akiva's elab­ equally in the translations of the oration might be called the credo of Jewish Bible, in many of the books of the Apocrypha biblical interpretation. and Pseudepigrapha, and in the New Testa­ In fact, the precise relation of midrash to ment, as well as in later rabbinic texts. And other types of Jewish biblical interpretation still more recently, the term has passed into and to Jewish tradition at large involves a popular circulation as a name for all "cre­ truly complex set of questions, and these be­ ative" interpretations of the Bible that seek to come even more complicated if the relation­ move beyond the historical, "original" sense ship of midrash is considered in connection of the biblical text. In this usage, the word with the competing traditions of Christian "midrash" stands for everything from novel­ and Islamic interpretation. Ultimately, these istic retellings of biblical episodes to post­ questions boil down to some of the most fun­ modernist essayistic explorations of Genesis damental issues that involve the study of bib­ and Exodus, New Age homilies, and contem­ lical interpretation in general, and Jewish in­ porary poems that re-imagine the biblical text. terpretation in particular. What does it mean Language, of course, follows usage, not the to call a type of interpretation like midrash strictures of scholars. Even if the latter (in­ "Jewish"? Is there a distinctively or uniquely cluding myself) would prefer to restrict the "Jewish" way of reading the Bible? Is a Jewish use of the word "midrash" to the ancient bib­ reading of the Bible distinguished merely by lical interpretations of the Rabbis-who, if its content and by the theological beliefs it they did not invent the term, nonetheless brings to its reading, or is there something in­ were the first ones to use it extensively­ trinsically different about the very procedures scholars do not control the fates of words. On of interpretation that Jews employ as opposed the other hand, while contemporary efforts at to those of, say, Christian readers of the Bible? "neo-midrash" are not direct descendants of Within the context of this Jewish Study Bible, the classical midrashic tradition of the Rabbis, it would seem especially opportune to con­ it is also not entirely inappropriate to call sider these questions even if there are no de­ these latter-day compositions living examples finitive answers to them. We may begin with a of the midrashic "spirit," motivated by some historical sketch of midrash's development. of the same desires that inspired the Rabbis to The origins of midrash lie in biblical tradition interpret the Bible. Yet precisely how to define itself where many biblical passages self­ that "spirit" is not an easy task. Perhaps the consciously look back upon earlier passages closest thing to a definition might be the clas­ and, in one way or another, reinterpret their sical midrashic statement attributed to the meaning. The book of Chronicles, for exam­ early sage Akiva (died ca. 135 CE), a comment ple, consciously recasts the history of the ear­ on Deut. 32.47, "[This law] is no empty thing lier books of Samuel and Kings, adding some for you (lo' davar reik mekem)." Exploiting the episodes and omitting others, and generally fact that the preposition mekem literally means spinning the earlier narrative in the course of "from," not "for," you, Akiva explained: "If it retelling it in a politically tendentious .iirec· seems empty, it is from you-on account of tion amenable to its author. Elsewhere, many your own failure--for you do not know how "later" verses in the Bible recycle allusions ESSAYS M I DRASH AND MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION and imagery from "earlier" biblical texts in implying that the meat should be boiled (as in order to apply them to new contexts and situ­ a stew). 2 Chron. 35.13, ob\·iously troubled bv ations. The laws of marital divorce become the discrepanc>· between the h\ro Torah verses, the·imagery to describe God's punishment of "solved" the textual problem (if not the culi­ the people of lsrael (cf., e.g., Deut. 2.ip-4 and nary one) by maintaining both locutions: The Jer. 3.1); from Egypt (Exod. chs Jews "cooked the paschal sacrifice in fire" (vny­ l-15), the paradigm for all future redemp­ vasll/11 hnpesnb bn'esll)-"they boiled the pas­ tions (see, for e),.ample, Isa. 43.16-20; 51.9-11; chal sacrifice in fire" (which probably means Ezek. ch 20). that they braised it). In a ,·ery few cases it is possible even to see The scholar Fishbane, who has ex­ how certain textual ''problems" are solved haustively studied these and similar cases in within the Bible itself. For example, in the year the Bible, has described them as part of a 605 BCE, some twenty years before the destruc­ larger phenomenon which he calls inner­ tion of the First Temple and the exile of the Ju­ biblical (see "Inner-biblical Interpre­ deans to Babylonia, the prophet tation," pp. 1829-35). Although most of these prophesied that Judea "shall be a desolate examples are not, strictly speaking, exegeses ruin, and those nations shall serve the king of (insofar as they do not explain or clarify any­ Babylon se\'enty years" (Jer. 25.11 ). Ln a sec­ thing about the earlier verse), they nonethe­ ond prophecy, somewhat later, he went on to less exhibit certain tendencies-inner dynam­ prophesy that ''when Babylon's seventy years ics, as it were-that are, at the least, exegetical are O\·er, I will fulfill to you My promise of reflexes. These include the tendencies (as we favor-to bring you back to this place" (29.10). have seen) to harmonize conflicting or discor­ And some se,·enty years later, in 538 BCE, dant verses; to reemploy and reapply biblical when the Judean exiles did indeed return to paradigms and imagery to new cases; to rein­ Judea from Babylonia, they must doubtless vest "old" historical references with "new" have behe\'ed that Jeremiah's prophecy had historical contexts; and to integrate nonhistor­ been fulfilled. Some 370 years later, however, ical portions of the Bible within the larger around the year 165 BCE, in despair over the context of biblical history (for example, by Hellenistic persecution of their religious prac­ giving individual historical super­ tices, Jews had greater difficulty believing in scriptions that "identify" the precise biblical the fulfillment of Jeremiah's promise of re­ episode during which composed the demption even if they were physically living psalm; e.g., Pss. 18 and 34). in the land of Israel. The author of the book of Once the Bible wa~ closed, Fishbane argues, Daniel. in order to bolster faith in the apoca­ these inner-biblical tendencies emerged as lypse he belie,·ed was imminent, reinterpreted full-fledged, consciously applied interpretive Jeremiah's earlier prophecy so that seventy techniques (demonstrating, if nothing else, years became seventy "weeks" of years-490 the deep continuity of early postbiblical inter­ years, in other words-a date that brought pretation with the preceding tradition). Our the ancient prophecy close enough to his earliest genuine commentaries on the Bible own time so as to com·ince his audience of its are the peshnri111, or apocalyptic commen­ truth. Or to g1,·e a second example of a differ­ taries, found among the at ent type of ''interpretation," here is a case , and the allegorical treatises on the where two earlier verses seemed to a later bib­ Bible written b\· of Alexandria. The \·ast lical author to contradict each other: Exod. 12.8 amount of early postbiblical interpretation is stipu late~ emphatically that the sac­ found, however, not in formal commentaries rifice must be roasted

-1869- JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE ESSAYS 1

term ', literally "strange wor­ emy. From such repeated auditory experi­ c ship," i.e., ]. And when Rebekah ences, one assumes the Rabbis memorized the s passed by a synagogue and a study-hall scriptural text and carried it around in their I (bet midrash), Jacob would kick her to let heads as a heard text. As we now know, a text l him out, this is what is written, "Before I learned this way is "known" differently than I created you in the womb, I knew you one learned from having read it on a page (or

(yedatikha)" (Jer. i.5) [probably reading the scroll). For one thing, the page itself does not (' last phrase as yidatikha, "I caused you to figure as a primary unit in one's memory of l: know") (Gen. Rab., ed. J. Theodor and H. the text. Another thing is that one "hears" the f Albeck, 63:6, pp. 682-83). text rather than "sees" it (even in the mind's eye), and as a consequence, one is more likely Each of these four interpretations offers a to associate like-sounding words or phrases slightly different though equally typical mid­ or verses (the latter probably having been the r rashic way of reading the word vayitrotzetzu: main units of memorization) rather than those Some break it up into smaller words like mt':. connected by visual elements (either physical ("run"), or pun it with a similarly sounding proximity in the written text or on a page, or phrase like hitir tzivuyav ("permitted the com­ matters of orthography). And while it may mands"), or connect the Genesis base-verse seem paradoxical, it is in fact perfectly expli­ with another verse in Scripture (e.g., Ps. 584) cable why the Rabbis tend to atomize verses which, through more punning interpreta­ or words into their constituent sounds, and si­ tions, is enlisted to gloss the meaning of the multaneously to associate otherwise unre­ base-verse. In the very last interpretation of lated verses or phrases on the basis of shared Jer. 1.5, the anonymous Rabbi exploits the fact phonetic elements; in both cases, they are re­ that the Hebrew text of the Bible in a Torah sponding to the phonetic/ aural element of scroll records only consonantal letters, and no the text. This is not to say that the Rabbis did vowels-a fact that, somewhat ironically, now not know the Bible as a written text; it was, in allows the midrashic reader to change the fact, the only text normatively written down vowels of certain biblical words and thus in rabbinic culture. It was, however, also the their meaning, as here from the active form, only text in rabbinic culture to be regularly yedatikha ("I knew") to the causative yidatikha read aloud from the written scroll. Indeed, the ("I caused you to know"). Bible's most common name in rabbinic He­ What leads the Rabbis to base so many of brew is miqra', "that which is read aloud." their interpretations on phonetic puns, on Midrash, then, is very much an exegesis of associations between the sound of a word the heard text. This does not, of course, explain like vayitrotzetzu and other similarly sounding everything in midrash. For while they are words and phrases? In part, this strongly willing to take the boldest liberties in inter­ aural dimension of midrash may derive from preting Scripture, the Rabbis are also the clos­ the Bible's own use of oral puns and sound­ est "readers" of Scripture imaginable, with an play-a habit facilitated by the very nature of almost preternatural sensitivity to the least spoken Hebrew-but it also probably reflects "bump" in the scriptural text-an unneces­ the way the Bible was learned by the Rabbis. sary repetition or superfluity, any kind of syn­ Most likely, Jews in the land of Israel during tactical or lexical peculiarity, a mere hint at the rabbinic period did not study the Bible by something unseemly in the way of behavior, reading it directly in scrolls, which were or the smallest possibility of an inconsistency doubtless scarce and, because of their size, between verses or even between a verse and rather unwieldy; rather, they learned Scrip­ what the Rabbis believed must be the case. ture from hearing it read aloud during the Since we have been considering Jacob and synagogue service or in classes in the acad- Esau, let us look at an interpretation of an- - ·s ESSAYS MIDRASH AND MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION

ri­ other verse from their narrative, from the conscious dissonance between what the Rab­ he story in Gen. ch 27 of Jacob's deception of bis knovv the Bible is saying, and what they :=ir Isaac, where he fools his aged blind father wish it to say. This is undoubtedly true: What

~xt into giving him the blessing intended for midrash continually demonstrates is the pos­ an Esau, the first-born son. Jacob's wiliness (of sibility that Scripture may mean something :or which this episode was not the first case) may other than what it says. But there is also a way or may not have been in itself a cause for em­ in which the playfulness of midrash may be of barrassment to the Rabbis, but Gen. 27.19 interpreted as the Rabbis' sense of the playful­ he posed a very concrete problem for them. In re­ ness of Scripture itself. After all, could God :i's sponse to Isaac's question, "Which of my sons have ever really allowed Jacob to mislead ~ly are you?" Jacob tells his father an outright lie, Isaac and let the blessing be given to the ;es "I am Esau, your first-born." How does the wrong son? Could Isaac, our ancestor, have :he midrash deal with this problem? been so easilv_, misled? Must he not have )Se The answer is quite simple: By rereading known to whom he was giving the blessing? cal the verse so that it no longer says, "I am Esau, Were not Isaac and Jacob merely pretending to or your first-born" but "I am [that is, Jacob]; deceive and to be deceived? Isn't this pretence Esau is your first-born" (Tn11(1., ed. S. Buber, at deception the subtext of the story in \·vhich Genesis, p. 131). Now this interpretation may Isaac and Jacob act out their roles of deceiver ;es seem overly clever, especially as an attempt to and deceived so that providential history, the si­ whitewash Jacob's reputation, but in fact the history of Israel and of the Jews, can take re­ interpretation exploits a genuine "problem" place despite history? ed in the verse. For why does Jacob need to tell The Rabbis, after all, fully kne\v who Jacob re­ his father that Esau is his first-born son? As an and Esau really were-not just biblical figures, of answer to Isaac's question, the detail is irrele­ not merely their ancestors. They were also the lid vant; and as a piece of familial information, it progenitors of Israel and Rome-the latter m is obviously something Isaac knmvs. Further, was almost as ancient an identification as the vn the Hebrew word that Jacob uses in the verse former-and, in a certain sense, they were Ju­ he to identify himself, 'anokhi, "I," is itself note­ daism and Rome. "The voice is the voice of ·Iv worthy as a somewhat archaic locution that Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esau," he every Rabbi would have instantly recognized Isaac announces as the disguised Jacob [e- as the opening word of the Decalogue-in­ approaches (Gen. 27.22). On \·vhich the mid­ deed, as the word with \Vhich God introduces rash comments: "Jacob attains domination of Himself: "I am/'anokhi the LORD your God" through his voice [i.e., the power of lan­ .in (Exod. 20.2). (In fact, another, somevvhat more guage], and Esau through [the power of] his ;re expansive version of this midrash states that hands." R. Yehuda bar llai is said to have

~r- Jacob said, "I am he who will receive the added that R. Judah the Prince interpreted the )S­ Decalogue, but Esau is your first-born" [Gen. latter verse in even more contemporary terms: an Rab. 65:18, p. 730).) Faced with all these tex­ "The voice of Jacob cries out for what the 1st tual "facts," along with the ethical problem hands of Esau have done to him" (Gen. Rab. ~s- raised by Jacob's outright lie, the midrashic 65:21, pp. 733-34, 740). The Rabbis knew that n­ reading might appear almost inevitable. the story of Jacob and Esau and their rivalry a t Almost, but not quite. Did the Rabbis be­ was not simply biblical history. It was also Jr, lieve that this was the "real" meaning of the their own history, the contemporary reality in verse, or what Jacob actually meant to say? which they had to struggle daily merely to This question takes us to the very heart of survive. midrash and its hermeneutics. Some scholars With this understanding of the hermeneuti­ have suggested that midrashim like this are cal background behind midrash, let us return n- midrashic "jokes," the humor lying in the self- to the question with which we began this JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE ESSAYS essay: What is Jewish about midrash? It only that its view of midrash is overly roman­ would be tempting to say that interpretations ticized but that it fails to take into account the like the preceding one, identifying Jacob with fact that midrash is itself a form of allegory­ Judaism and Esau with Rome, point to the in­ not philosophical allegory, to be sure, but herently Jewish nature of midrash. This is cer­ nonetheless a form of interpretation that seeks tainly true of the content of the interpretation, to show how the text means something other but it is worth recalling that ancient and me­ than what it says. In this, midrash is not dif­ dieval Christian students of the Bible used the ferent from other types of ancient interpreta­ same hermeneutical principle to identify tion. There is, in fact, much in early Christian Jacob with the church and Esau with Judaism. interpretation from the itself The same is true by and large of the ancient through Augustine and the Antiochene fa­ Jewish and Christian interpretations of the thers that is midrash-like. The main herme­ Song of Songs; both traditions interpret the neutical difference betvveen the two is that poem as a love song between God and His Christian exegesis is far more systematic. Be­ chosen nation-the major difference being cause of its greater intimacy with classical that in one case the beloved nation is Israel, in philosophical culture, Christian interpreta­ the other Christianity (or the church). ls the tion is hea\'ily theorized and more program­ difference between Jewish and Christian in­ matic (and to that extent, more obviously ten­ l terpretation then merely one of theological dentious than rabbinic interpretation). It is I preferences? also driven, as it were, by a different set of I Some scholars have posited the differences anxieties. The main anxiety for Christian between the two interpretive traditions as interpreters is the knowledge that the New t' being that between midrash and allegory. In Testament is indeed a belated document, a I fact, over the past twenty years, as they have late-comer, as it were, and hence the main j awakened to the existence of midrash, literary challenge faced by Christian exegetes is to theorists in particular have sought to see in prove that the New Testament is in fact the rabbinic hermeneutics an alternative mode of key to understanding the , and interpretation to allegory. Where the latter is that the latter cannot properly be understood said to posit the existence of a reference or without the full knowledge afforded by the meaning "behind" the text as a kind of static New Testament. In contrast, the anxiety driv­ metaphysical presence, midrash has been cel­ ing the Rabbis is the worry that the Bible itself ebrated for seeing meaning "in front" of the foresees their rejection and obsolescence; text, in the intertextual play between verses, hence the constant challenge they face is to in the deferral of a single absolute meaning in find through midrash a way for God to ad­ favor of a multiplicity of provisional and pos­ dress them anew, to prove through the study sible meanings, and not least of all, for its far of Scripture that they remain His chosen more open complicity between the interpreter people, and that their interpretation, as em­ and the act of interpretation as a subjective ex­ bodied in the Oral Torah, is in fact the true ercise whose interest lies less in the outcome and legitimate interpretation of the Bible's of interpretation than in the process itself. meaning. I Some scholars have even identified midrash The other feature that truly distinguishes with a kind of uniquely Jewish "ontology," or rabbinic midrash is its singular literary form, at least a mode of thinking whose difference the modes of discourse in which its herme­ ' from the so-called Greco-Christian logocen­ neutics are articulated. These literary forms tric tradition, usually identified with allegory, show the close connection between rabbinic has been seen as closer to that of poststruc­ interpretation of the Bible and synagogue turalism. homilies. The most characteristic of all these The difficulty with this comparison is not forms is the proem or petibfa, a form that may ESSAYS MIDRASH AND MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION have served (as Heinemann has sug­ elites to light a special candelabrum in the gested) as a kind of mini-sermon that intro­ sanctuary. Rather, it is testimony to the reci­ duced the initial verse of the weekly procity of the deeds of God and man: If Israel . Instead of beginning with that lights God's lamp in the sanctuary, then He verse, however, the proem opens with an­ will light man's lamp, namely, his soul. Or to other verse taken from a completely different put the same point in more general terms, part of Tanakh; this verse is typically called human life is God's response to human obser­ the "remote" verse because it is, for all practi­ vance of the commandments! cal purposes, unrelated to the weekly Torah The peti~ ta epitomizes the characteristic reading and its opening verse. It is this verse type of midrashic literary form that exists pre­ that the proern actually "interprets," building cisely in the gray area between pure commen­ in the process a kind of exegetical bridge that tary, on the one side, and an original, creative eventually culminates in its true subject, the composition. Indeed, it is precisely in this opening verse of the weekly reading. gray area between the two separate realms of As a brief example of the form, consider the commentary and literature that midrash takes following petibtn for the weekly Torah reading seed and grows, never crossing over entirely that begins with Le\·. 24.2, "Command the Is­ into either realm, flourishing in the space pre­ raelite people to bring you clear oil of beaten cisely in-between. The petibtn is also only one olives for lighting, so as to maintain lights among several literary forms of this kind that regularly." come into existence in midrash as the dis­ course of its exegesis. These relati\'ely short Bar Kapparah (d . 230 CE) recited a pet i~1tn: literary units-which include the , the " It is You who light my lamp; the LORD, my extrabiblical legend, pronouncement and ful­ God, lights up my darkness" (Ps. 18.29). fillment stories (in \vhich interpreted biblical The Holy One, blessed be He, said to man: Your lamp is in my hand, as it is said, verses serve as punchlines or prophetic real­ izations of unusual narratives), and ,·arious "The lifebreath of man is the lamp of the types of lists and testimony forms-are the LORD" (Prov. 20.27). And my lamp is in real literary units of rabbinic mid rash. yours: [this is the meaning of the phrase] Unlike their contemporaries, the Rabbis did "so as to maintain lights regularly" (Le\·. not write treatises on the Bible and its mean­ 24.2). To which the Holy One, blessed be ing (as did Philo, for example), nor did they He, added: If you light my lamp, I will light initially compose tracts in which th e~ · sought yours. That is the meaning of "Command to "rewrite" the Bible (although such \·vorks the Israelite people ... " (Le,·. :14.2). do come into existence in the early post­ Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this rabbinic period). It is not even clear that thev particular pctibtn is the speech the author of wrote commentaries as did the members of the proem puts into God's mouth-a speech the apocalyptic community at Qumran. We that is actually an interpretation of Ps. 18.29; know very little about the composition or God Himself confirms, as it were, the mean­ process of editing of the various midrashic ing of the verse in the psalm, but it is also collections, but from their contents and over­ through God's "interpretation" that the all skeletal style, it would seem that they were preacher or author of this sermon speaks to compiled to serve as source-books for "pro­ his audience. While the interpretation itself, fessionals"-that is, rabbinic preachers and as well as that of Pro\". 20.27, are independent teachers who used them to prepare sermons exegeses, the proem joins them in order to and lessons. There is little indica tion that they make its own point about Le\·. 24.2. Contrary were originally meant to serve as commen­ to how it looks in Scripture, this verse is not taries to be studied alongside the Bible nor simply a commandment from God to the lsra- were they, as were a number of early Chris- JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE ESSAYS tian exegetical texts, transcripts of actual ser­ revived by the fledgling kabbalistic move­ mons or lessons in Scripture. As anthologies ment in such works as the Sefer and the of interpretations, with multiple interpreta­ Zahar, where they were infused with a new tions recorded side-by-side with no com­ mystical content and thereby transformed ments and few attempts to navigate between into a medium for esoteric teachings. At this them, these midrashic collections embody point, however, another literary tradition had the delight of midrash in always yet another begun. additional interpretation. Yet unlike their For much of the past two centuries, since postmodern descendants, in which polysemy the beginnings of the Jewish Enlightenment signifies an indeterminacy that reflects the and of modem critical study of the Bible fundamental instability of meaning, multiple among Jewish scholars, most interest in pre­ interpretation as found in midrash is actually modern Jewish biblical interpretation has a sign of its stability, the guarantee of a belief centered upon the interpreters of the in Scripture as an inexhaustible fount of Middle Ages, with their more contextual, meaningfulness. grammatically informed, and rationalistic ex­ That the Rabbis preferred this type of an­ egesis of the biblical text. And yet, as has be­ thological composition to systematic treatises come increasingly clear in the last half­ or formal commentaries is in itself a revealing century, peshat exegesis has been more of an fact about the way they saw biblical interpre­ exception, almost a blip, in the long history of tation. For them, Bible study was an ad hoc Jewish biblical exegesis. If there has been a activity directed essentially to an audience dominant mode of Jewish reading of the hungry for a response to its immediate needs Bible, it has been more in the "spirit" of and to the desire to have Scripture speak in midrash-if not classical midrash itself-with the present moment. This feature of midrash its imperative to connect to the biblical text, is also one that seems to have troubled some its irrepressible playfulness, and its delight in later rabbinic authorities and even led them to multiple, polyvalent traditions of interpreta­ dismiss midrash as at best a poetic form of tion. And nowhere is this more visible than in speech that need not be taken too seriously. the very page layout of what becomes the true Partly because of such ambivalence, mid­ Jewish study Bible-that is, the Rabbinic rash's forhmes following the rabbinic period Bible, the Miqra'ot Gedolot-as it was first pub­ decidedly waned. The high point of classical lished in 1516 by the Christian printer Daniel midrashic creativity was reached in the first Bomberg and then successively built upon five centuries in the common era, but while and expanded by subsequent publishing encyclopedias of midrash continued to be houses. On this page, as one can see from composed throughout the Middle Ages, origi­ Figure 1, the biblical text is surrounded by nal midrashic composition declined until, ul­ commentaries and para-exegetical works­ timately, the new forms of peshat-oriented the Aramaic next to the biblical text, exegesis-so-called contextual or plain-sense with the commentaries of , Ibn Ezra, interpretation-emerged in the late 10th cen­ Na}:tmanides, Sforno, and others below. Al­ tury in the Islamic world and the 11th century though most of these commentaries are peshat in Europe. What has survived in the popular commentaries, each one explicitly or implic­ Jewish tradition of Bible study from the classi­ itly insisting upon the univocal truth of its cal midrashic traditions are primarily those particular interpretation, here they all lie next interpretations that were selected by Rashi to each other on the same page, as though (R. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040--1105) for inclusion there were no significant difference or dis­ in his commentary to the Bible. Finally, in agreement between them, awaiting the reader the 12th and 13th centuries, the literary forms who will study them all, gleaning each for its of classical midrash were appropriated and own contribution and added significance. In ESSAYS MIDRASH AND MIDRASHIC INTERPRETATION

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A Miqra,of Gedo/of (RABBINIC BIBLE}, VILNIUS 1907, FROM THE BEGINNING OF EXODUS l The page includes the biblical text, the standard Aramaic translation (Targ11111 011kelos), Rashi, a super-commentary on Rashi, Naf:\manides, Ibn Ezra, Sfomo, and two other commentaries.

its celebration of the possibilities of multiple the supreme power midrash continues to interpretation, this very page layout is "mid­ wield in the Jewish study of the Bible. rashic" -and powerful testimony in itself to (DAVID STERN]