midrash and the hebrew bible

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© 2008 The Author Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Religion Compass 2/5 (2008): 754–768, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00101.x Midrash and the Hebrew Bible Rivka Kern-Ulmer* Bucknell University Abstract Midrash is the particular mode of interpreting the Hebrew Bible that was developed by the rabbis of late antiquity in the Land of Israel. Midrash rendered Scripture relevant to the needs of a specific period in time. Definitions of midrash, the scope of midrashic activity, and its applicability to multiple interpretive strategies are widely disputed among scholars. This essay examines inner-biblical interpretation, defini- tions of midrash, midrash scholarship, classifications of midrash, the boundaries of the genre midrash, midrasic exegesis, and various theological assumptions of midrash. Introduction Midrash is the particular mode of interpreting the Hebrew Bible that was developed by the rabbis of late antiquity in the Land of Israel. Midrash rendered Scripture relevant to the needs of a specific period in time. Definitions of midrash, the scope of midrashic activity, and its applicability to multiple interpretive strategies are widely disputed among scholars. There were three major approaches to the Hebrew Bible in late antiquity that are often overlapping: (1) translation; (2) commentary of the text; and (3) midrash. One might want to add a fourth approach, the appropriation of a text that is in the possession of one group by other groups. Midrash is certainly a sub-genre of rabbinic literature; the difference between some Bible commentaries and midrash is in the spatial arrangement. Commentary is line-by-line, whereas midrash ‘weaves’ its exegesis of single biblical lemmata into coherent statements. Rabbinic midrash as a literary genre is dependent upon formalistic and socioeconomic features as well as upon the creators who embody its practice; these conditions determine the limits of midrash in its halakhic, aggadic or homiletical expressions. This essay examines inner-biblical interpretation, definitions of midrash, midrash scholarship, classifications of midrash, the boundaries of the genre midrash, midrasic exegesis, and various theological assumptions of midrash. Inner-Biblical Interpretation Midrash is often viewed as the exploration of God’s plan for the Jewish people as recorded in the written text of the Hebrew Bible since God’s

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Page 1: Midrash and the Hebrew Bible

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Religion Compass 2/5 (2008): 754–768, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00101.x

Midrash and the Hebrew Bible

Rivka Kern-Ulmer*Bucknell University

AbstractMidrash is the particular mode of interpreting the Hebrew Bible that was developedby the rabbis of late antiquity in the Land of Israel. Midrash rendered Scripturerelevant to the needs of a specific period in time. Definitions of midrash, the scopeof midrashic activity, and its applicability to multiple interpretive strategies are widelydisputed among scholars. This essay examines inner-biblical interpretation, defini-tions of midrash, midrash scholarship, classifications of midrash, the boundaries ofthe genre midrash, midrasic exegesis, and various theological assumptions of midrash.

Introduction

Midrash is the particular mode of interpreting the Hebrew Bible that wasdeveloped by the rabbis of late antiquity in the Land of Israel. Midrashrendered Scripture relevant to the needs of a specific period in time.Definitions of midrash, the scope of midrashic activity, and its applicabilityto multiple interpretive strategies are widely disputed among scholars. Therewere three major approaches to the Hebrew Bible in late antiquity thatare often overlapping: (1) translation; (2) commentary of the text; and (3)midrash. One might want to add a fourth approach, the appropriation ofa text that is in the possession of one group by other groups. Midrash iscertainly a sub-genre of rabbinic literature; the difference between someBible commentaries and midrash is in the spatial arrangement. Commentaryis line-by-line, whereas midrash ‘weaves’ its exegesis of single biblical lemmatainto coherent statements. Rabbinic midrash as a literary genre is dependentupon formalistic and socioeconomic features as well as upon the creatorswho embody its practice; these conditions determine the limits of midrashin its halakhic, aggadic or homiletical expressions.

This essay examines inner-biblical interpretation, definitions of midrash,midrash scholarship, classifications of midrash, the boundaries of the genremidrash, midrasic exegesis, and various theological assumptions of midrash.

Inner-Biblical Interpretation

Midrash is often viewed as the exploration of God’s plan for the Jewishpeople as recorded in the written text of the Hebrew Bible since God’s

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speech is no longer audibly communicated (Fishbane 1989). The assumptionthat midrash exists in the Bible relies upon the occurrence of the term darash(e.g., Gen. 25:22; Ezra 7:10), which has the twofold meaning of seekingand interpreting. Although this term is related to the noun midrash, itsmeaning shifted over time and within different Biblical books. After theExodus from Egypt, God and his voice dwelled in a sanctuary that sub-sequently evolved into the First Temple in Jerusalem. After the destructionof this temple in 587 bce the direct access to the words of God was largelylost. Instead, the text was found in a portable document, the Torah scroll(Neusner 1988). Ezra, the scribe, who was sent by the Persians from exilein Babylonia to Jerusalem in order to re-establish Judaism, did not receivedirect communication from God but interpreted the scroll text. The originsof rabbinic midrash may actually lie in the ‘enactment’ of laws during theensuing Second Temple period, since Ezra was the paradigm of a sofer, some-one interpreting and teaching the law as well as being a priest. The termdarash in the Second Temple period denoted instruction rather than herme-neutic interpretation (Mandel 2006).

Two passages in the Hebrew Bible contain the term ‘midrash’: ‘writtenin the midrash of the prophet Iddo’ (2 Chr. 13:22) and ‘written in the midrashof the Book of the Kings’ (2 Chr. 24:27). These passages have led to specu-lation that the Bible contained or utilized interpretations that are com-parable to rabbinic midrash. The term ‘midrash’ as utilized by the Chroniclerrefers to an extra-biblical source. However, we have no certainty what typeof historical or interpretive source this may have been. Inner-biblical inter-pretation occurred and was carried out within the biblical canon; theseinterpretations did become part of the Hebrew Scriptures in the form ofcomments, revisions, and rewritings of the text from one textual genre (thelaw codes) into another genre (psalms or prophecies). However, there is nomidrash within the Bible (Teugels 1998); later rabbinic midrash is merely oneof the ancient texts that demonstrate an interpretive relationship to theHebrew Bible.

Pre-rabbinic Jewish Bible Interpretation

One may note interpretive activity in the community at Qumran as well asthe allegorical interpretation of the Bible by Philo of Alexandria. In par-ticular, the genre of rewritten Bible (e.g., the Genesis Apocryphon and theTemple Scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls) has been compared with midrash. Inthis ‘parabiblical literature’, the line between Scripture and its interpretivereading is fluid and, according to Fraade, the heuristic construct of ‘com-mentary’ is needed to unite midrash and the rewritten Bible of the Dead SeaScrolls under one canopy (Fraade 2006). The beginning of midrashic activityis marked by a shift from priestly to non-priestly (i.e., rabbinic) authority.

Further comparisons between pre-rabbinic and rabbinic interpretation, onthe one hand, and between the so-called ‘tannaitic’ and ‘amoraic’ midrashim,

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on the other hand, have demonstrated how certain characteristic features ofmidrash developed at specific times and in specific contexts. For example,the term midrash rarely appears in another rabbinic document, the Mishnah;on the few occasions the term appears that it denotes a teaching (Gruber2007). The problem of distinguishing between the meaning given to anancient Hebrew term such as midrash and the meaning it may have hadin other texts has not been fully explored.

Midrashic Interpretation of the Bible

The term midrash that denotes the rabbinic method of Bible interpretationhas its starting point in the canonical Biblical text, and the Bible is cited inmidrash. Alternatively, midrash may refer to individual exegetical pericopaeand to the anthologies or works containing rabbinic exegetical statements(Porton 2005). Thus, we find an ostensible midrash on a biblical book, suchas the midrashic compilation Genesis Rabbah, which is a work that containsa well-structured collection of exegetical rabbinic statements on lemmata fromthe Biblical book of Genesis. Furthermore, midrash may also be found inworks of rabbinic literature that are not called midrash, notably the Targums,the Talmuds, and medieval Bible commentaries. The term ‘midrash’ denotesmultiple phenomena; it may refer to the process of interpreting Scripture,the theology of its interpreters as well as the results of the interpretations(Neusner 1992). Most scholars concur that midrash consists of more thana random application of methods and the products of their application(Goldberg 1999; Porton 2002). Midrash is uniquely and distinctively rabbinic,finding its fullest expression in the interpretations collected in the classicalmidrashic works compiled by rabbis.

A major characteristic of midrash is lemmatization (segmentation) of thebiblical texts. Rabbinic interpretation focused upon meaningful parts, suchas a word, a letter, or any string of meaning within a verse. Whether themultiple meanings of a sign of Scripture are part of the indeterminacy of thetext (Stern 1988) is a debatable proposition. An example of lemmatizationand of rabbinic theology in midrash is found in the following text that fousesupon the lemmata ‘in the beginning’ and ‘amon’:

Genesis Rabbah 1:1In the beginning [bereshit] (Gen. 1:1). Rabbi Oshaya commenced: Then I was withHim as a nursling [amon], a source of delight every day, [rejoicing before Him at all times](Prov. 8:30).Amon means ‘tutor’ (pedagogue).Amon means ‘covered’.Amon means ‘hidden’.And there are some who say, Amon means ‘great’.Amon means ‘tutor’, as in the verse, as an amon carries the suckling child (Num.11:12). Amon means ‘covered’, as in the verse, those who are covered in scarlet(Lam 4:5). Amon means ‘hidden’, as in the verse, and he hid Hadassah (Est. 2:7).

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Amon means ‘great’, as it says, are you better than No-Ammon (Nah. 3:8)? This wetranslate: Are you better than Alexandria the Great, which is situated in the[Nile] delta? Another interpretation: Amon means ‘artisan [uman]’. The Torahdeclares, I was the artisan’s tool that the Holy One, blessed be He, used [whenhe practiced His craft]. It is customary, when a human king builds a palace, hedoes not build it out of his own head, but he employs an architect [uman].Even the architect does not build it from his head, but he uses plans andblueprints in order to know how to plan the rooms and the doorways. So, too,the Holy One, blessed be He, looked into the Torah and created the world. Thusthe Torah said, By means of the beginning did God create (Gen. 1:1). And the wordfor ‘beginning’ refers only to the Torah, as it says: The Lord acquired me at thebeginning [reshit] of His course (Prov. 8:22).

This midrashic passage contains several different interpretations of oneBiblical lemma, ‘amon’. The representation of the content of the lexicalitem amon utilizes some knowledge from other scriptural verses, and itenables the reader to decide which properties are essential to the overallstatement of the midrash. As usual, the midrash uses the method of focusingupon certain lemmata that are linked by the same root and its variantpropositions. The words of the midrash have to be read accumulativelyand from the bottom up. Every single mention of amon and its surprisingnew meaning has to be considered. Against the usual understanding ofamon as ‘nursling’ the midrash establishes the opposite meaning of amonas ‘tutor’ from another scriptural passage. The result is that the Torah,according to this midrashic interpretation, can accommodate both of theseterms as well as the other meanings of amon. Every single meaning is appli-cable. Additionally, the many uses of the Hebrew root AMN of ‘amon’ andthe comprehensive aspect of this midrash may lead the knowledgeable readerto the term ‘amen’, which is the worshipers’ response. This aspect includesthat the Torah is covered in garments, when it is carried like a ‘nursling’(small child) during the Torah procession and that the Torah is not imme-diately visible; ‘hidden’ and ‘covered’ may mean that the Torah is storedin the ark and that it is covered by its garments. On the level of midrashicinterpretation, the sense is that the linguistic signs of the Torah have tobe uncovered, that is, interpreted. On a more metaphorical level, it is obvi-ous that the Torah had to be revealed to the people of Israel, because itwas hidden, it was taught and written, and ultimately great wisdom evolvedfrom it.

A major theological concern of the rabbis was that the Torah had to bedifferentiated from anything foreign, in particular from anything ‘Egyptian’.Thus, the Torah is greater than No-Ammon, a place in Egypt. By virtue ofthe hermeneutic strategy of ‘updating’, the midrash changes it to the Hel-lenistic Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria. This method of updating or trans-lating brings into view a better-known or contemporary city, Alexandria, acenter of wisdom and learning of the Hellenistic/Roman world. The herme-neutic strategy thus enables the formation of a theological statement: the

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Torah given to Israel is greater and contains more wisdom than the greatestsource of wisdom of the nations.

The artisan part of the above midrash demonstrates that the Torah was theplan for the world that was to be created. This is the so-called dogma of‘the pre-existence of the Torah’, which is another major theological expres-sion of rabbinic Judaism. Additionally, it means that God is bound by theplan in the Torah, and if God is bound by the plan of the Torah, so muchmore will the Torah bind humans. The implication of the mashal method(interpretation in parables) is to show God’s integrity and his plan for theworld and for humanity. The essential, theological result of the hermeneuticstrategies and the resulting reading is that bereshit (Gen. 1:1) means that theworld was created ‘with reshit’, removing the temporal aspect and replacingit with wisdom. This is a theological proposition of the midrashic unit, whichcould have been stated at the beginning of the unit, but, as is often thecase in midrash, the midrash has to be read from the bottom up to gain thisconceptual understanding of a sequential ‘order of things’. The rabbinic textrequires the reader to follow well-reasoned steps of analyses and ‘different’readings of a polysemic term; all of which are appropriate and valid.

Midrash Scholarship

From its infancy in the nineteenth century (Ulmer 2003), the academic studyof midrash evolved into a specialized discipline within Jewish studies ingeneral and within rabbinics in particular. Major research into midrashicliterature was accomplished in the twentieth century; however, the discussionof the phenomenon midrash continues to engage scholars from multipledisciplines, demonstrating a diversity of approaches to midrash. The meth-odological and philosophical approaches to midrash changed significantlyin Europe in the 1960s through the early 1980s. The new methodologiesutilized literary criticism, literary theory, and models of comparative liter-ature (theories of Russian formalists) as well as the science of textlinguisticsand the procedures of generative semantics. This was probably due to thefact that midrash was studied at the university outside the confinements ofreligion. Concurrently, midrash was approached as an expression of an essentialelement of Judaism (Kugel 1983). After the initial rejections of European-based literary criticism in the USA, some scholars eventually followed thismethodological stimulus (Hartman & Budick 1986) and produced their owncritical reading of midrash as literature (Stern 1996). The literary-criticalapproach went beyond the previously assumed function of midrash to fill ingaps in the biblical text. Additionally, feminist studies began to pay attentionto midrash and mined midrash for the roles women were assigned in lateantique Judaism (Baskin 2002).

The investigation of functional literary forms and intertextuality in mid-rash transpired in Europe (Goldberg 1999, originally published in 1981); thisresulted in a minimalist definition, namely, midrash is a literary unit in

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rabbinic text consisting of a lemma and an utterance about this lemma. For-malistic methodologies resulted in understanding the text-linguistic mech-anisms of midrash (Samely 1992; Ulmer 1998). The term ‘intertextuality’means that the interpreters utilize previous texts, adding material and editingthe text, and that they draw upon a store of pre-existing or traditional ideas(Boyarin 1990). Analyses of single literary forms such as the rabbinic parable(Stern 1991), of a particular work (Fraade 1991), or of a particular hermeneuticrule of midrashic interpretation and rabbinic theology followed (Fishbane1998). Research into literary motifs relating to a significant rabbi furthershowed the compositional character of midrash (Basser 2007).

Recent scholarship focused upon (i) previously researched specific periodsor schools of rabbinic literature, as well as the culturally specific readingpractices in the socio-historical context of the emergence of the rabbinicmovement (Yadin 2004); (ii) the renewed review of the utilization of mid-rashic strategies by non-rabbinic groups (Townsend 2005); and (3) culturalintersections and polemics (Ulmer 2006a). However, there are many remainingdisputes between scholars, in particular with regard to the use of midrashin non-Jewish texts and to refer to any interpretive activity as midrash (seebelow, Teugels and Ulmer 2007).

Thus, recent scholarship has stressed the distinctively rabbinic context andcharacter of midrash; it identifies midrashic forms and methods in relationto the self-definition, social status, theology, and literary production of therabbis. In order to assess rabbinic theology, Jacob Neusner created and system-atically applied ‘category-formation’ to midrash. He asserted that a ‘formationof categories’ occurs in the theological system of the midrash compilations(Neusner 2001; pp. xviff.). These categories include the following: a para-digm generative of logic or rationality of coherence and proportion; anactivity; a consistency; defining some specialized vocabulary such as ‘locative,utopian’; a hierarchical classification as well as analogical-contrastive reasoning;and modes of thought.

Definitions of Midrash

The definition of midrash has often focused upon the particularity of rab-binic hermeneutics. However, one may argue that many of the exegeticalstrategies that are found in midrash were utilized by other social groups thatcreated interpretive texts. Nevertheless, midrash is also defined by a the-ological viewpoint: ‘What makes Rabbinic Midrash unique is its theologyembodied in its hermeneutics but not its methods of exegesis’ (Neusner2004, p. vii). Thus, the authors of midrash have to be viewed in contrast toother exegetes, who attempted to find definite scriptural meanings, whereasthe rabbis are considered to be creative in their approaches to Scripture asan endlessly generative source of truth, a divine text that accepts a pluralityof human interpretations. Whereas Christian interpreters adopted Hellenisticmodes of literary production such as authorship, the texts of the rabbinic

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interpreters are collected in anonymously edited works, such as Genesis Rabbah.Midrash accomplishes the structuring of arguments in well-ordered reasoningin which the Torah serves as a discussion partner and is assigned its ownpronoun: ‘it says’ (Ulmer 1998).

Text editions of midrashic texts are fundamental since they are the foun-dation of any interpretation of midrash. Some text editions of the nineteenthand early twentieth centuries did not have access to certain Hebrew manu-scripts and the omission of any cultural insights in these editions occasion-ally resulted in the misreading of the texts. The powerful authority of aneditor of rabbinic texts has been emphasized (Milikovsky 2002); this has beenvalidated due to the difficulty of discerning between textual variants (Visotzky2005). Additionally, formalistic methods have been applied to determine therelationships between variant texts that were copied during the Middle Ages(Ulmer 2005b).

Classification of Midrash

In order to address the location of midrash within the rabbinic interpretivetradition, the concepts of the Written and the Oral Torah as well as the so-called ‘chain of tradition’ have to be considered. One important rabbinicassumption is that the Oral Torah, the authoritative interpretation of theWritten Torah, was given to Moses on Sinai. This assumption would renderthe Oral Torah as coexistent with the Written Torah (Neusner 1999). Thechain of tradition, which spells out the tradents of the Oral Torah from Mosesto the rabbis, established the hermeneutic link between Revelation at Sinaiand rabbinic interpretation (Neusner 1998). However, rabbinic Judaism itselfoffers diverse perspectives on the subject of the chain of tradition and mid-rash scholarship has emphasized the untenable nature of any simplified modelof explaining midrash. The Oral Torah is not secondary to Scripture; rather,the Oral Torah is an ideological construct that has its roots in tannaiticliterature and continued in amoraic texts of the third or fourth centuriesce, which needed to re-emphasize the authority of rabbinic interpretation(Jaffee 2001).

In addition to the rabbinic form of interpretation as recorded in theMishnah (Samely 2002), a different approach to halakhah (law) emerged inthe halakhic midrashim. This raises the issue, whether the halakhic midrashicinterpretation preceded or succeeded an interpretation without referencesto the Bible. The question remains open, whether the Sages at the time ofthe Second Temple utilized midrashic methods as found in later midrashicworks, such as Sifra (probably second half of the third century) and Sifre(probably after the middle of the third century), and derived halakhot (legalstatements) from Scripture. Sifra quotes from other rabbinic works, Mishnahand Tosefta, and it establishes that laws in the Mishnah derive from Scripture.Since the Pharisees utilized the Oral Torah to support their authority, midrashmay have been the earlier method of deriving the halakhah. On the other

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hand, if the Mishnaic method, that is, rarely citing Scripture in free-standingmishnayot, preceded midrash, it could also support the position that halakhahwas not originally derived from Scripture. The Mishnah (Avot 1) points toSinai as the origin of the Mishnah’s tradition and the chain of tradition fromSinai ends with named individuals found in the Mishnah.

It is difficult to differentiate midrashic works into the standard classifi-cations, such as ‘halakhic’ (legal), ‘aggadic’ (narrative), exegetical, or ‘homiletic’,because the texts are not homogenous; furthermore, it is difficult to datemidrashic texts because they grew by accretion and the material is intercon-nected (Stemberger 1996). In addition to the above-mentioned halakhicmidrashim (e.g., Sifra), there are ‘non-halakhic’ midrashim that may includethe amoraic midrashim (e.g., Genesis Rabbah; Lamentations Rabbah; and EstherRabbah, ca. 400–500), as well as the ‘post-amoraic midrashim’ (e.g., Pesikta de-Rav Kahana; Ruth Rabbah, ca. 500–640; Midrash Proverbs; Ecclesiastes Rabbah,ca. 640–900; and Deuteronomy Rabbah; parts of Exodus Rabbah, ca. 775–900).These texts consist of two very fluid and often overlapping categories. Thefirst category comprises the aggadic midrashim (e.g., Numbers Rabbah;Deuteronomy Rabbah) that display the discernible form of Rabbinic midrash(a scriptural lemma, a midrashic operation, and a midrashic statement) or therabbinic homily (Goldberg 1985). The rabbinic homily contains midrashicmacro forms that develop the lectionary verse of the synagogue reading andhave a concluding homiletic unit (e.g., Leviticus Rabbah, Pesikta Rabbati, andTanhuma). All of these works are referred to as the ‘classical midrashim’. Thesecond category comprises mainly medieval midrashim (Elbaum 1986) thatare somewhat reminiscent of the previously mentioned exegetical and homi-letic midrashim but show few of the formal midrashic characteristics (e.g.,Aggadat Bereshit, Midrash Konen, Petirat Moshe, Midrash Temurah, and MidrashTadshe).

Midrash research is further complicated by the fact that identical materialoccurs in different works and that we have material in manuscript form thathas not been assigned by medieval editors to a particular midrashic work.

The Boundaries of Midrash

Midrash may be viewed as genre sui genesis. A literary genre is defined bythe social group that creates and uses it. Furthermore, a literary genre maybe defined as a series of texts that exhibit a coherent and recurring configu-ration of literary features involving structure, content, and function. Addition-ally, the determination of the genre midrash in its social function offers aparticular mode of expression, and it provides the basis for midrash to become‘ethicizing’ and ‘theologizing’ (Teugels and Ulmer 2005).

Midrash may be a performatory literary genre that was established forteaching and transmission purposes. Economic factors, such as the agri-cultural society in the Land of Israel, as well as trading and professionalendeavors, such as tax collecting, also shifted and influenced the purposes

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of late antique rabbinic writings. When the socio-economic and intellectualbasis of the literary genre midrash was lost in the Land of Israel and whenmidrashic activity was transferred to the Diaspora, the genre and the interestsof the social group that maintained midrash changed. Medieval midrashcontinued to derive historical or ethical lessons from the Bible and attemptedto imitate the ancient form of midrash. Usually, there was a transition from‘exegetical’ and ‘aggadic’ midrash to medieval stories that relate to the Bibleor were based upon tales from the Christian or Islamic milieus that were themain cultures of the Jewish Diaspora. Historical factors contributed andconditioned the production of rabbinic midrash (e.g., Midrash Lekah Tov onSongs 1:3 reflects the European martyrs of the Crusades). Another signifi-cant change that transpired during the Middle Ages was that frequentlymidrashic works had a known author, for example,, Bereshit Rabbati wascomposed by Moshe Narboni (Ulmer 2006b).

Based upon the socioeconomic definition of literary genres, midrashcould be viewed as the rabbinic approach to the Hebrew Bible, althoughsimilar methods of interpretation are found in earlier and different texts.In Judaism, the hermeneutic tradition that began with biblical interpre-tation, if not earlier with inner-Biblical exegesis, developed its distinctivehermeneutics in midrash. ‘Midrash’ was used as a terminus technicus by therabbis. Midrash is a rabbinic genre that was first used by the rabbis to denotetheir own method of interpreting the Hebrew Bible; by necessity, midrashis related to Scripture and it presents itself formally as commentary (Teugels1998).

Whereas the Mishnah was discussed in the Talmuds, the midrashic approachof playful discourse on the meaning of scriptural lemmata developed intothe literary genre midrash, which flourished in the first six centuries of theCommon Era. In these constructed discussions, midrash explicates multiplemeanings that is one of its distinctive and characteristic elements. Polysemyseems to be based upon the underlying ideology of midrashic exegesis (Stern1996); however, this polysemy is a literary creation based upon the redac-tional juxtaposition of conflicting views. The nature of this polysemy isdisputed, since all opinions are recorded as a conversation. Furthermore,one may note that there is no polysemy in tannaitic midrash by the Schoolof R. Yishmael (Mekhilta, Sifre Numbers) (Yadin 2004).

The social context of the community, and the theological threats presentin the Land of Israel and in the early Medieval Diaspora, necessitated thatthe creators of midrash adapt a situation in the ancient past of the Bible tothe more pressing concerns of the Diaspora. Midrash reacts to hermeneuti-cally significant events and midrash as a hermeneutic enterprise may have itsown metahistorical approach to the essential meaning of events. One exampleof this type of metahistorical approach is found in a midrashic interpreta-tion that is part of a rabbinic homily for Hanukkah, a festival ordained bythe rabbis and not found in the Hebrew Bible; this festival has to be anchoredin the Bible and rabbinic authority has to be confirmed:

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Numbers Rabbah 14:4Another interpretation: The words of the wise are as goads [kadarbanot] (Eccles. 12:11).R. Berekhiah Ha-Kohen says, like a girls’ ball, [kadur shel banot], which they pickup and throw about, this way and that. It is the same with the words of thewise: One Sage gives his view and another gives his.

The ball game metaphor fits the general concerns of the midrashic text, thatis, how to survive in the Diaspora and observe the laws pertaining to thefestival of Hanukkah. The midrashic passage offers a glimpse into rabbinicinterpretive activity and how the social group that created midrash positioneditself as the sole heirs to revelation. Words were tossed from Sinai duringrevelation like balls and now, that is, in the present tense of the midrash, wordsare tossed back and forth between the rabbis who are interpreting Scripture.Interpretation is continuous but it is subjected to the rules of a game.

The rabbis of late antiquity and subsequent generations of rabbis attemptedto limit the number of hermeneutical rules in order to make midrashicexegesis finite and limit its interpretations (Ulmer 2005a). Other ways oflimiting midrash include the circle of interpreters and the books that maybe interpreted. The passage set forth below illustrates some of the majorlimits of midrash: only certain books are subject to rabbinic interpretationand only a certain group (the rabbis) that derives its authority from Sinai ispermitted to interpret Scripture. Once the canon of the Hebrew Bible wasclosed, only the 24 books of Scripture could be interpreted, because thesebooks were tossed ‘like a ball’ from Sinai. Rarely do we find interpretationsof extracanonical books, such as Ben Sira, in the midrashic corpus. God,‘the shepherd’, is the source of the messages and multiple interpretationscontained in Scripture:

Numbers Rabbah 15:22Another interpretation: As nails [masmerot] well fixed (Eccles. 12:11). From this theSages have inferred that it is forbidden to read the non-canonical books; for itis written, As nails [masmerot] well fixed, which may be read mishmarot: as thereare twenty-four priestly divisions [mishmarot] so there are also twenty-four booksin Scripture. Those that are composed in collections, this applies to the Sanhedrin.Should you object that while one Sage permits, another prohibits; while onedisqualifies, another declares fit; while one rules that a thing is unclean, anotherrules that it is clean; while R. Eleazar condemns, R. Joshua acquits; while theHouse of Shammai disqualify, the House of Hillel declare fit; to whom then shallwe listen? The Holy One, blessed be He, says: They are all given from one shepherd(Eccles. 12:11).

Rabbinic hermeneutics is the mediator between the Written Torah and itscompanion, the Oral Torah, which is recreated in midrash. Rabbinic herme-neutics and the hermeneutic rules applied by the Sages function as a medi-ator between the Torah and the agendas of the rabbis. Generally, one mayassume that a religious system would specify how humans can gain access toDivine revelation and would justify the reasons for staying within its para-meters (Neusner 1989). The creators of the midrashim make explicit their

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exegetical reasoning by the application of hermeneutic rules. The rules assistedin decoding the Bible, which contains the revealed word of God, which issomewhat different from the language that humans use for purposes of com-munication. The Oral and the Written Torah are separate but complementary( Jacobs 1995). The oral tradition is regained and projected into the futurethrough the rabbinic hermeneutical rules and the ensuing norms and expla-nations that make the Torah relevant and additionally presents the theologyof the interpreters.

The Hermeneutic Rules

Comparisons of rabbinic approaches to biblical interpretation to othercultures take into consideration that in ancient Greece there had beeninterpreters of the sacral law. Furthermore, there are parallels betweenhalakhic exegesis and the Greco-Roman system of legal interpretation(Daube 1977) and Hellenistic rhetoric (Alexander 1990). However, to ascertainthe origin of certain hermeneutic rules is often impossible because of thenature of midrash that does not explain the source of the hermeneutic rulesbeyond an etiological legend. Nevertheless, rabbinic exegesis of the author-itative text, the Hebrew Bible, may be compared with a similar hermeneuticenterprise of the Alexandrian grammarians who wrote exegetical commentson Homer and Jewish Bible interpretation in Alexandria (Siegert 2005).Rabbinic exegesis as found in midrash represents a unique initiative of therabbis of late antiquity since midrash is a hermeneutic discourse per se(Ulmer 1997).

The tannaitic tradition establishes three sets of rules of biblical interpre-tation: (i) the ‘Seven Rules of Hillel’, (ii) the ‘Thirteen Rules of R. Yishma’el’,and (iii) the ‘Thirty-two rules of R. Eli’ezer’. The thirteen rules (secondcentury ce) are earlier than their assumed author (Towner 1982); theymainly collected and possibly amplified them. The thirty-two rules were onlycollected in the early medieval period, although they were applied earlierin midrashic literature. The seven rules certainly existed before Hillel theElder applied them (Tosefta, Sanhedrin 7:11); the time of their acceptancewas probably the late first century bce. The seven rules are stated in theintroduction to Sifra: A fortiori, analogy, two verses, and a general statementand a particular statement, and something similar to it in another place, anda thing is explained from its context. Different schools of rabbinic study andteaching modified the rules in various ways. The most prominent differencesare those ascribed to R. Akiva and R. Yishma’el (Hirshman 2000).

Rabbi Akiva postulated that the divine language of the Torah is distin-guished from human speech by the fact that in the former no word or soundis superfluous. Rabbi Yishma’el contended that the Torah speaks in humanlanguage (Sifre Numbers 112, Horovitz edition, p. 121; Genesis Rabbah 1:14)and that there is no additional meaning attached to signs such as grammaticalsigns, doubling of words and adverbs in Scripture.

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Midrash limits itself by its reliance upon the biblical text and the sets ofhermeneutic rules that continued to expand. This definition would excludeany type of (post)modern midrash, although the term midrash has been appliedto a variety of interpretative activities, from the use of biblical allusion inMoby Dick to understanding Jacques Derrida (Raphael 1999; Wright 2000)to dancing and visual art. In this author’s view, midrash was the rabbinicsearch for meaning in Scripture and midrash as a literary genre is limitedto the rabbinic corpus of midrashic works from late antiquity and the earlyMiddle Ages.

Problems of Midrashic Exegesis

A problem of midrash is the near absence of theoretically framed evaluationprocedures of its interpretive results. However, there is another controllingforce that cannot be formalized and it is submitted that this force is rabbinictheology and its concepts. The hermeneutics of the rabbis facilitates an inte-gration of the Torah and God into the text of the rabbinic cultural sphereand its particular theology that is expressed in midrash (Neusner 1991). Forexample, there may be the rabbis’ personal attachment to certain solutionsand their own subjectivity. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the rabbis,all textual problems are treated objectively. From this hermeneutical per-spective, ontological and epistemological analyses are advanced.

Midrash is primarily a text-based activity and midrashic exegesis is meta-linguistic. Midrash first creates a linguistic sign and then interprets this linguis-tic sign derived from the graphic sign that is available in the Hebrew Bible(Goldberg 1999). The biblical text serves as a basis for the religious practiceof the rabbis. However, for the rabbis the biblical text is rarely dependentupon any time reference in their exegetical enterprise. A biblical sign, likeany other text, once it is separated from its source, produces a potentiallyinfinite range of interpretations. Textual interpretation is inherent in theHebrew Bible from the beginning, but the rabbinic interpreter understandsScripture’s meaning in his own time. Thus, the present, at any given moment,creates the context of Scripture.

Short Biography

Rivka Ulmer’s research focuses on midrashic literature. Presently, she isworking on Egyptian concepts in rabbinic thought. She has published thirteenbooks, for example, Discussing Cultural Influences, 2007 (ed.), Recent Develop-ments in Midrash Research, 2006 (ed. with L. Teugels), A Synoptic Edition ofPesiqta Rabbati Based Upon All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts And The Editio Princeps(1997–2002), a three volume edition of a midrashic work, Turmoil, Traumaand Triumph: The Text of Megillas Vintz, a Hebrew & Yiddish poem/song thatdescribes a pogrom in Frankfurt in 1614, and The Evil Eye in the Bible andRabbinic Literature. More than 60 scholarly articles have appeared in such

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publications as Journal of Jewish Studies, Encyclopedia of Judaism, ContemporaryStudy of the Mishnah, Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies, Judaism,Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, Encylopaedia of Midrash, Encyclopediaof Judaism, Journal for the Study of Judaism, Judaica, Approaches to Ancient Judaism,Henoch, Kairos, Encyclopédie Philosophique, Theologische Realenzyclopädie, Lin-guistica Biblica, Annual of Rabbinic Judaism, Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge, Bulletinof the Oriental Institute in Cairo, Religion and Society, and others. Ulmer receivedher PhD in Judaic Studies from Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Mainwith a dissertation in midrash. She holds MA degrees in Linguistics, AmericanStudies and Judaic Studies. Additionally, Ulmer has extensive training inEgyptology. Ulmer teaches at Bucknell University (The John D. and CatherineT. MacArthur Chair in Jewish Studies, 2002–2007, presently Associate Pro-fessor of Jewish Studies). Ulmer is the co-chair of the Midrash Section ofthe Society of Biblical Literature and the Judaica chair of the InternationalSociety of Biblical Literature.

Note

* Correspondence address: Rivka Kern-Ulmer, Bucknell University, Moore Ave., Lewisburg,PA 17837, USA. Email: [email protected].

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