The Literature of Formative Judaism: The Midrash Compilations

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This page intentionally left blank PREFACE C O N T E N T S Contents A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S הׇדֵבאֹנ ןֵכּ םׇיַּב ףׇטְֵנכ֗ו RABBI NATHAN* Shammai used to say, “a fixed habit.” And this is the comment: Profile of a Midrash day of the third month, Siwan, which fell on a Friday, that second, a third, and a fourth time until they learned it able to repeat it. Nor was even this sufficient: they must be a temporary rupture between them, comparable to the tempo afraid of other birds flying higher above them. The eagle, how Emmaus in Judea when he saw a Jewish girl excrements of a horse that, he was scene was symbolic to him of the subjected to the most were unwilling to pay the head-tax of Heaven, ‘a beka a head’ (Ex. head-tax of fifteen shekels under a government of enemies; you were unwilling to repair the roads and streets have to keep in repair posts and stations on the roads to the royal c stern justice is further emphasized by the close of the passage serve the Lord thy G shalt thou serve ‘ because thou didst not serve the Lord hadst plenty, ‘therefore shalt thou serve bestows upon the human situation contained in i answer it gives to the problems it raises. A Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai in Jerusalem, until a bad came from his mouth. Said R. Yoḥanan ben Zakkai to him:‘Eliezer, have you eaten nothing today?’ He was silent. He told him once sent to his inn and said: ‘ answered them: ‘Thus I also thought that he was probably eating with name go forth for you in the Torah’. Jerusalem great of Israel sat before him. When he heard that he was coming, guards and told them: comes, do not permit him to sit made him made him sit down next to him between them (ARN II). amazes neither the listeners present nor the latterday readers. He is considered a great man amongst the great and a man of IV, 7 ) , and Shimmush hakamim, “servile attendance of 568 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW master, for him who is the Master of the world, Ribbono The Greek word Didascalos, teacher, is incorrect. Like­ (2) The second title in use was Abba, “father.” With our question. Dr. Buechler, in Die Priester und der pp. 31–33, referring to a number of passages 570 THE JEWISH QUETERLY REVIEW Sifra, 9 a). “the men of violence who appropriated other people’s 574 THE JEWISH QUATERLY REVIEW 576 THE JEWISH QUATERLY REVIEW way: Abba Benjamin, in a Baraitha Berakot, 5 b, gives 578 THE JEWISH QUATERLY REVIEW Josephus is Ktistes or Polistes, “founders of townships,” expression “ f a t h e r E l i j a h ” in Sanhedrin, 113 b, to be 580 THE JEWISH QUATERLY REVIEW THE PRE-TALMUDIC HAGGADA. characters. They are figures moulded after a different pattern by, and for, a different class of Bible students, nor are they products of a school like Hillel’s and Akiba’s. He who created, for instance, the characters of Adam and Noah did not, as Dr. Kohut believes, simply copy the Jama or Djemshid of the Zoroastrians, but he moulded the entire cycle of the Proto-plastes after the general Mazdean conception of the world, from its beginning to its end i n the millennium of Soschiosch. I t is, therefore, not enough to single out a few Talmudical parallels and compare them with the Parsee original, in the fashion that Professor Graetz, the Breslau Court-historian, feels tempted to call Zoroaster the “ape of Moses.” There are far closer relations between the Haggada of the Book of Enoch and the original Apocalyptic Book of Adam and Eve, of which the Book of Jubilees an d the first Sibylline Book are the off-shoots on the one hand, and the Mazdean tradition, recorded in the Bundahish, on the other, and the resemblances become so striking as to leave no doubt as to a common (Persian or Babylonian) origin. With regar d to the characters of Henoch and Seth, again, we are led from Persian to Egyptian influences in the moulding of the same. The original inventor of letters, the divine recorder, the erector of engraved pillars, the assistant of the Deity in the judgment of the souls is the Egyptian Thot, and there can be no doubt that Henoch was shaped after his pattern. Also his astrological and The Pre-Talmudic Haggada. The Pre-Talmudic Haggada. excluded are quite distinctly singled out as the Samaritans, the half-heathen Jews. To solve the problem, we must look for Rabbinical analogies in the Midrash. Nor is i t difficult to discover these. After the worship of the golden calf, Moses, says the Bibl e (Exodus x x x i i . 20), gave the Israelites water mixed with the ashes of the idol to drink, and the Targum Jerushalmi explains it , better than the Talmud (Joma lxxxvii .): the water branded the stain of impurity upon their foreheads, and those thus marked were th e three thousand killed by the Levites. I n the very same manner the Midrash has Gehazi punished with the sign of leprosy upon the forehead, because he made the golden calf for King Jeroboam. And I should not be surprised i f another Midrash w i l l yet be discovered which tells us that Micha, the maker of the idol of Dan (Judges xvii. and xviii.), who, according to the Midrash was, by the help of Satanic power, the real maker of the golde n calf, had this mark of leprosy on his forehead. For he is identical with the Samiri, or Samaritan of the Koran, who has for ever to go about crying out, “Là misàs,” Touch me not ! ארקי אמט אמט. Here now we find the connecting link. The Samaritans were again tested by Jeremiah, and by the sign of leprosy on their foreheads—as we may no w surmise—which has been changed by the Christian interpolator into the sign of a seal, although only the disobedient, as we read, were marked, found to be still addicted to idolatry. Our conjecture w i l l be corroborated, i f not verified, by the final act of our story. Jeremiah, the book continues, starts from Babylonia at once, that is, on the twelfth day of Nissan, when Ezra started, according to the Scriptures. The failure of Zerubbabel’s attempt was probably the reason why Jeremiah’s name was connected with Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s return rather than with the former’s (see 2 Mac. i . — i i . ; and Sanhedrin xxxviii., where Nehemiah is identified with Zerubbabel !). Ezra arrived in Jerusalem at the beginning of the month of Ab, and after a three days’ rest, he held a great festival 139 418 The Jewish Quarterly Review. the Syrian Cave of Treasures, or the Adam book, and Midrash Jalkut t o Ezekiel xxviii . 2), as a sort of Phœnician Friedrich Barbarossa, probably after an original Phœnician legend, though derived from the Cherub, or Phœnix legend of the Prophet Ezekiel, while his palace and gardens high above th e sea and the land to challenge the Deity, yet finally to seal his doom—given also in the Koran legend of th e gardens of Iram after the Midrash, are both old Chaldean and Jewish folklore tales. Jonadab ben Rechab and Jabez, the grandson of Jehuda (not א י ש נ ה ה ד ו ה י יבר) (see 1 Chron. i i . 55 and iv. 9, with Targum), are the real heroes of the Essene schools, the founders and continuators of the Nazirite customs from the earliest ages, as may be learned from Pliny and Philo. As such they occur in the very oldest Midrash traditions in connection with the tribe of the Kenites of Jethro, etc. This page intentionally left blank The Jewish Quarterly Review. weeping and tearing his hair in distress at the sight of the multitude going through the wide gate, and again smiling and exulting at the sight of the few entering the narrow gate. “For the one leads to destruction, the other to eternal bliss, and against seven thousand that walk on the road of perdition, there is hardly one soul that walks on the path of righteousness without blemish to find salvation.” The writer , probably himself entranced as he opens his vision, continues, as if relating in the name of Abraham : “While I was still speaking, behold, there were two angels of fiery face and fierce looks, who drove before them ten thousand souls through the wide gate to perdition, while a single soul was led by one angel. Following the many through th e gate, we beheld a man of marvellous stature and sun-like appearance, resembling a son of God sitting on a throne of crystal, and before him stood a table of crystal inlaid with chrysolith and beryl”—the reading of th e corrupt text is conjectural!—“with a scroll of six cubits ’ length and ten cubits’width, while two angels held paper and ink and pen in their hands ; and on the other side sat one angel of light with a pair of scales in his hand, and one angel of fire of relentless mien, holding a vessel with fire to probe the sinners. The man upon the throne judged th e souls that approached, and pronounced their fate, the two angels opposite weighing and testing them, and th e two other angels recording the verdict, the one the righteous acts and the other the sins.” “This, O holy Abraham,” says the heavenly captain Michael, “is the judgment and the r e t r i b u t i o n . ” The one that pronounces the judgment is the first saintly martyr, Abel, the son of Adam. “Man shall be judged by man” (cp. Genesis ix. 6, and Targ. Jerush.), saith God ; “therefore the power was given to him until the time when God himself will come and give the final judgment, which is everlasting and un­ changeable. For each man having sprung forth from the first created , all are first judged here by his son, and after the second appearance of the great Ruler t o ” — I adopt here 154 600 The Jewish Quarterly Review. conception (if not the Hindoo (Brahmin) one given in Boo k XIV., of the Pre-Buddhistic Epic Mahabharata) is the original and the Christian is a copy. But between these stand the Jewish Essenes. They certainly wrote the Sibylline books, and of these the second book, verses 260-270, has an indisputable Jewish character. They are the prophetical warning to the idolatrous heathen, the pederasts, adulterers, and usurers ! There is the original “gnashing of the t e e t h ” of those in Gehenna, Sibyll. Book V I I I . 350 ; I I . 306, “ t h e fire” and “ t h e worms,” and the “ w a i l i n g ” of Matt. xii i . 42 and 50, which expression goes back to Judith xvi. 17. Consequently, when a tradition in the name of R. [Joshua ben] Levi, in Shir Hashirim Rabba to v. 15, and Vayikra Rabb. § 25, says that as those that live in concubinage with their servants are “ h u n g up by their heads in Gehenna”— exactl y as the adulterers are hung up by their heads i n the Peter Apocalypse—and the Rabbinical saying is based on Psalm lxviii . 22, while the Midrash and Targ. Jonath . show the entire Psalm applied to the Two Roads of Life and Death Eternal, Heaven and Hell !—we see at once that the Christian Apocalypse offers only borrowed views and traditions. I n fact, we possess a remarkable visio n of an Essene, דיסח, of the time of Simon ben Shetach, a century before the rise of Christianity, according to which the departed Essene brother enjoys, under the shade of the trees of Paradise, the bliss of the streams of life, while the son of a publican nearly suffers the agonies of Tantalus, standing in the midst of water, yet unable to quench his thirst (compare Visio Pauli, by Brandes, page 28, and St. Perpetua VII.) and a saintly woman, Miriam, the daughter of Eli (the high priest), is at times hedged in under the reeds [of the Styx river] or hung up by her breasts, because her fasts had often the air of hypocrisy (see Jerush. Hagiga II. 1). Compare also the thirteen streams of Balsam which R. Ahbahu saw flowing for him to drink from in Paradise This page intentionally left blank 554 The Jewish Quarterly Review. Mekilta de Rabbi Simon b. Joḥai. To Genesis 49:1 he quotes the following passage: .)a201 ssieW( VIX romE כדגרסינן במכילתא בני אם תקח אמרי ומצותי :222 .p III .dibI )9( וגרסינן במכילתא יתום לא ישפוטו וריב אלמנה :802 .p VI dibI )01( גרסינן במכילתא מעשה ברוכל אחד שהיה מסבב :733 .p VI .dibI )11( This passage is found in Midrash Shemuel ch. XX (Buber The ‘Plain’ Meaning of Scripture in Early Jewish Exegesis with any fortuitous link, טשפ requires such link as its starting-point — This page intentionally left blank PROLEGOMENON TO THE PESIKTA [13] g) Scripture states: “Not like these is the portion of Jacob” (Jeremiah 10:16). (Proof for “f”) This page intentionally left blank HISTORY AND MIDRASH Wisdom is saying in that verse in Proverbs is this: I was God’s ar­ the Torah.” הרותה תוכזב אלא ארבנ אל ואולמו םלועה (Gen. R., ed. Wilna. W. SIBLEY TOWNER ment tradition by means of informal hermeneutical methods to the new ing: “All beasts?” It merely comes to teach you that a general state­ ment which is added to a specific statement includes everything. ological tradition through re-presentation. By reason of this very This page intentionally left blank T H E LITERARY GENRE MIDRASH T H E L I T E R A R Y G E N R E MIDRASH (Part Two)* sets out to give same selective suggests that L seems quite secondary. However, there others a midrash, a and simple forerunner of the later more to classify it as or midrash and sees it as a compilation of traditional lore on the popular literary of the pseudepigraph the narrators). The editors of the Josephus is not looked upon as an object to be clarified, interpreted and made relevant ; it is rather a source from which to draw material. Josephus does not intend his work to contribute anything by way of understanding to account ; it is the biblical account which contributes to the work of Josephus. Therefore, JA as a whole is not a midrash, nor are those sec- used to interpret the Josephus has taken it used it as data for his history ; hence, the material, now no longer ceases to be midrashic. cases the genre of a composition, or of degree he is a midrashic author.” some areas—although not in the wholesale fictional some like Pfeiffer would suggest, for today we realize that those of Sm-Kgs as well as new doctrinal themes which he is attempting to illustrate. The work is structured not on themes of the Chronicler. And all indications those books as sources and not as an object of interpretation. He takes selected passages in accord his interests, sometimes rearranges these earlier sources in part or in whole (Chr and J areas these it is sometimes very difficult in practice to classify a work seems clear that it is the personages themselves and not some specific biblical narration these writings in this manner is that these works freely stands in relation to no biblical text as, say, GA does to Gn, yet this is the essential note of midrash. I name gave them synagogue practice have no parallel to 4 Mc (save in a sense Heb 11 and Wis 10) darkness (17,1-18,4) resembles very much a homily Jews in rescue. I these chapters of Ex as his point of departure. (The same sort of digest is states the pattern he has detected in comparing those events with the proceeds to help his audience to the same reasons these chapters at one time constituted a Passover Haggadah recited perhaps there is more precision in this judgment than one same way and genres. For example in CD 4,12-19 we find the following passage: those years (13) Belial shall be unleashed against Israel; observance of the commandment : gave you author can cite or paraphrase a text and, while the text is under the hearts of fathers toward their sons same psalm text apparently also inspired 2 Esd 8,34-35 where it becomes a call these passages is a midrash. analogous situation obtains in his own day. On the one hand, the texts cited have been merely recalled so that a conclusion might be drawn from data for the new composition. On piece could be understood as an application of the message that the text should have for the sect. In 1QS 2,2-4 it is again difficult to decide in which direction the move- priests shall bless all (2) the men of the lot of God who walk perfectly bless thee with all (3) goodness, keep thee from all evil Again, Sirach takes Prv 11,4a expands it to useless on the day of wrath. (Sir 5,10) Perhaps it is an attempt to elucidate the proverb and to bring out the perhaps Ben genre meditation on Scripture and actualization of Scripture for needs. From our remarks above it should be clear that such also with multiple ones there are two sake of the old text can the source is not midrashic. Moreover, anthological style process resorted to merely out of a desire to speak in the language reason or another, and this can hardly be conceived of passage, one has not ex perhaps be argued that Wis 3-4 should be classified as a midrash uses them in connection wisdom to show that the these things come to pass in Israel, create that context on their own? does not sin against God it prosper suggests that perhaps this was the point case he did not write a else than the logical strates the error of such a confusion. There is a vast difference between the adapts and interprets another composition. The first is a method that can used in many literary operations (to assemble oral material into various second is a literary work with a uses a certain method does not absorbed by the literary form of that book. They do not separate from the text commented upon. stated that there is a very close relationship between past for the sake of the present and past, whereas apocalyptic is concerned with revelations and is oriented apparent because in reality midrash is concerned with the past for the sake of present past or recounts some alleged prophecy past. Bloch then concludes that apocalyptic is really only a variety of Needless to say this discussion of the two literary forms is not past for the answers to the future and these texts in the manner proper to apocalyptic, then the work genre ; it is both apocalyptic and midrash. As always, the present or not is whether or not the sake of some biblical text ; and the deficiencies of the past (or conversely, sequent visions of the book to Daniel and thus give them some authority. perseverance encourage the reader in time of persecution. There these stories are called the because they are made above in the case of Est and Tb because of its episodes on five texts with the referring of OT Scripture to Jesus in whom sees the texts in the manner and in detail, and it is the subsequent, primary, reader/hearer to out from those data. same connection, the mere citation of a sense is not a midrash. A case of This page intentionally left blank V o l u m e I Author Index