Midrash

Midrash, from the Hebrew root DRSh (to search out), refers to the characteristic hermeneutics of the rabbis in the classical age and beyond. The term was first used by Ben Sira (second century b.c.e.) in a compound word meaning "my house of study" (Ben Sira 51:23), but it is employed commonly to refer to a particular hermeneutic posture, only by the rabbis themselves.

Rabbinic midrash begins with the text of Hebrew scripture, assuming scripture to be the product of divine revelation and hence a source of potentially infinite instruction. Legal texts are interpreted, often employing technical hermeneutic methods, to derive or support rabbinic law. Narrative texts are read with creative imagination to yield new models for Jewish piety or conduct, often rendering biblical texts relevant to a new era.

In medieval rabbinic culture, halakhic (legal) study was valued above midrashic discourse. However, despite the lower status of the midrashic enterprise, old midrashim were compiled into new collections, and new midrashim were composed. Some have argued that because midrash had few direct normative consequences, it was the mechanism through which the rabbinic imagination was realized.

The great freedom exhibited by midrashic readings—and midrashic support of multiple readings of the same base text—has allowed midrash to gain surprising popularity in contemporary circles. Literary theorists have turned to midrash as an exemplar of the claim that a text's meaning (even a divine text) is indeterminate and, further, that the author's intent does not control meaning. Because of the evident innovative possibilities of a midrashic approach, many contemporary Jews have returned to the Hebrew Bible to write "modern midrash." Particularly notable as part of this phenomenon are new feminist midrashim.

See alsoJudaism.

Bibliography

Hartman, Geoffrey H., and Sanford Budick. Midrashand Literature. 1986.

Neusner, Jacob. The Midrash:AnIntroduction. 1990.

David Kraemer