Posts
1. I read Raphael Loewe’s “The ‘Plain’ Meaning of Scripture in Early Jewish Exegesis”. Loewe’s argument is that peshat in early Jewish exegesis did not mean the same thing as peshat in medieval Jewish exegesis. Medieval peshat was influenced by how the Arabs treated their texts. Essentially, it was the plain sense of a biblical passage—its literal meaning. According to Loewe, peshat in early Jewish exegesis was unrelated to that (though, on one page, which I can’t find right now, Loewe points out that the third century C.E. rabbi known as Rava once used the word “peshat” in reference to a biblical passage’s plain sense). Rather, peshat in early Jewish exegesis meant an authoritative teaching, which was authoritative either because it was taught by an authoritative teacher, or because the public recognized it as authoritative.
2. In Joseph Heinemann’s “Nature of the Aggadah”, the following passages from pages 45-46 stood out to me:
The verse “Who is like Thee, O Lord, among the gods [ba-elim]” (Exod. 15:11) was interpreted by the sages as reading: “‘Who is like Thee among the mute [ba-'illemim]‘: for He sees His Temple in ruins and remains silent” (B. Gittin 56b and additional texts). This interpretation reflects a burning theological question: “His children are put in neck-irons—where is His might?” (ibid.). This could only be answered with the idea that divine silence and restraint was in itself a manifestation of God’s might, for “Who is mighty? He who subdues his nature” (M. Avot IV 1).
3. In Judah Goldin’s “Freedom and Restraint of Haggadah”, the following passage from page 62 stood out to me:
My literal-mindedness is gullibility; very well, yours is comparative anthropology or literary criticism. So it goes in scholarship and in interdepartmental feuds.
4. In David Stern’s “Midrash and the Language of Exegesis”, the following passage from pages 120-121 stood out to me:
And yet, in a time when classical prophecy had ceased among the Jews, the activity of midrash served a comparable religious need: it helped to restore a sense of God’s presence through discourse. [A] new religious language was created whose very purpose was to reinvoke God as a familiar and intimate presence.
