Editing Midrash (section)

{{Short description|Traditional Jewish exegesis of Biblical texts}}
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[[File:Midrash tehillim title.jpg|thumb|250px|Title page, [[Midrash Tehillim]]]]
'''''Midrash''''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɪ|d|r|ɑː|ʃ}};<ref name=RandomHouse>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/midrash "midrash"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304071602/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/midrash |date=2016-03-04 }}. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.</ref> {{langx|he|[[wikt:מדרש|מִדְרָשׁ]]}}; {{abbr|pl.|plural}} {{lang|he|מִדְרָשִׁים}} {{transliteration|he|midrashim}} or {{Script/Hebrew|מִדְרָשׁוֹת}} ''midrashot'') is an expansive [[Judaism|Jewish]] [[Bible|Biblical]] [[exegesis]]<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e-CPBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22simply+biblical+exegesis%22&pg=PR11 |title=Jacob Neusner, ''What Is Midrash'' (Wipf and Stock 2014), p. xi |isbn=978-1-4982-0083-7 |access-date=2023-03-15 |archive-date=2023-06-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627061914/https://books.google.com/books?id=e-CPBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22simply+biblical+exegesis%22&pg=PR11 |url-status=live |last1=Neusner |first1=Jacob |date=5 August 2014 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers }}</ref> using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the [[Talmud]]. The word itself means "textual interpretation", "study", or "[[exegesis]]",<ref>[http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Jastrow//] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191118021026/http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Jastrow/|date=2019-11-18}}[[Marcus Jastrow]]<span>, </span>''Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature''<span>, p. 735</span></ref> derived from the root verb {{transliteration|he|darash}} ({{lang|he|דָּרַשׁ‎}}), which means "resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require".

Midrash and rabbinic readings "discern value in texts, words, and letters, as potential revelatory spaces", writes the Hebrew scholar [[Wilda Gafney]]. "They reimagine dominant narratival readings while crafting new ones to stand alongside—not replace—former readings. Midrash also asks questions of the text; sometimes it provides answers, sometimes it leaves the reader to answer the questions".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Womanist Midrash : a reintroduction to the women of the Torah and the throne |author=Gafney, Wilda |isbn=9780664239039 |edition= First |location=Louisville, Kentucky |oclc=988864539 |year = 2017}}</ref> Vanessa Lovelace defines midrash as "a Jewish mode of interpretation that not only engages the words of the text, behind the text, and beyond the text, but also focuses on each letter, and the words left unsaid by each line".<ref name="Lovelace 212–215">{{Cite journal |last=Lovelace |first=Vanessa |date=2018-09-11 |title=Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne, written by Wilda C. Gafney |journal=Horizons in Biblical Theology |language=en |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=212–215 |doi=10.1163/18712207-12341379 |s2cid=171667828 |issn=0195-9085}}</ref>

An example of a midrashic interpretation:

{{blockquote|"And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day." ([[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] 1:31)—Midrash: ''Rabbi Nahman said in Rabbi Samuel's name: "Behold, it was very good" refers to the Good Desire; "AND behold, it was very good" refers to the Evil Desire. Can then the Evil Desire be very good? That would be extraordinary! But without the Evil Desire, however, no man would build a house, take a wife and beget children; and thus said Solomon: "Again, I considered all labour and all excelling in work, that it is a man's rivalry with his neighbour." (Kohelet IV, 4)''.<ref>(''Genesis Rabbah'' 9:7, translation from Soncino Publications)</ref>}}

The term Midrash is also used of a [[rabbinic literature|rabbinic work]] that interprets Scripture in that manner.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Midrash |title=''Encyclopædia Britannica'': Midrash |access-date=2018-07-31 |archive-date=2018-09-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180917200856/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Midrash |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10812-midrashim-smaller |title=''Jewish Encyclopedia'' (1906): "Midrashim, Smaller" |access-date=2018-07-31 |archive-date=2018-08-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180801004000/http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10812-midrashim-smaller |url-status=live }}</ref> Such works contain early interpretations and commentaries on the [[Written Torah]] and [[Oral Torah]] (spoken law and sermons), as well as non-legalistic rabbinic literature ({{transliteration|he|[[aggadah]]}}) and occasionally Jewish religious laws ({{transliteration|he|[[halakha]]}}), which usually form a running commentary on specific passages in the Hebrew Scripture ([[Tanakh]]).<ref>ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14, pg 182, Moshe David Herr</ref>

The word ''Midrash'', especially if capitalized, can refer to a specific compilation of these rabbinic writings composed between 400 and 1200 [[Common Era|CE]].<ref name=RandomHouse/><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/midrash |title=Collins English Dictionary |access-date=2018-07-31 |archive-date=2018-08-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180801003741/https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/midrash |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Gary Porton and [[Jacob Neusner]], ''midrash'' has three technical meanings:
# Judaic biblical interpretation; 
# the method used in interpreting; 
# a collection of such interpretations.<ref>[https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/26814/02chapters3-4.pdf?sequence=3 Chan Man Ki, "A Comparative Study of Jewish Commentaries and Patristic Literature on the Book of Ruth" (University of Pretoria 2010), p. 112] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180801004224/https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/26814/02chapters3-4.pdf?sequence=3 |date=2018-08-01 }}, citing Gary G. Porton, "Rabbinic Midrash" in Jacob Neusner, ''Judaism in Late Antiquity'' Vol. 1, p. 217; and Jacob Neusner, ''Questions and Answers: Intellectual Foundations of Judaism'' (Hendrickson 2005), p. 41</ref>