About Midrash

 

The Hebrew word midrash means, basically, a piece of biblical interpretation, but of a certain kind. Midrash never means explaining a biblical verse in its obvious sense, something any reader would come up with. Rather, midrash is always some non-obvious insight, a clever, between-the-lines reading.

 

There’s a question about midrash that comes to mind in connection with this week’s Torah reading. The reading continues last week’s catalogue of the different kinds of sacrifices to be offered in the mishkan, the moveable sanctuary that would accompany the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness. These same sorts of sacrifices were offered in the Jerusalem Temple—until its destruction by the Romans in the first century of the common era. Ever since then, there have been no sacrifices. All that Jews have had is a kind of verbal offering, a fixed prayer (the ‘amidah) recited standing three times a day—every morning, evening, and night. In a sense, then, these prayers are a kind of substitute for the Temple sacrifices.

 

A well known discussion is reported in the Talmud (b. Ber. 26b) concerning the origin of the times established for saying these prayers. Were they originally established to correspond to the times of the daily tamid sacrifices offered in the Temple? Or did the practice of praying three times a day go way back to Israel’s first ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

 

The latter possibility might seem unlikely, but an exponent of that view was Rabbi Yose son of R. Ḥanina, and he had a wonderful proof to support his contention. The morning prayer, he said, is first attested in a certain verse in the Torah referring to Abraham: “And Abraham rose up early in the morning to [go to] the place where he had stood before God” (Gen 19:27). Standing before God must, according to Rabbi Yose, refer to praying; not only is the ‘amidah prayer recited standing (“standing” is what ‘amidah means), but in fact, Psalm 106:30 similarly says that Phinehas “stood up and intervened,” and this last word (vayfallel) sounding very much like “prayed” (vayyitpallel). And since it says that Abraham “rose up early”—then this verse must be hinting that Abraham founded the morning prayer.

 

As for the afternoon prayer, the midrash continues, it was established by Abraham’s son Isaac, since the Torah reports:  “Now Isaac went out to speak in the field toward evening” (Gen 24:63). No other interlocutor is mentioned, but surely Isaac would not be going out to “speak” alone! He must have been going out to pray. And in fact a similar word for “speak,” siaḥ, is used in the sense of “prayer” in Psalm 102:1.

 

The evening prayer was, according to the same tradition, established by Isaac’s son Jacob. After Jacob leaves home on his way to his uncle Laban’s, the Torah says that Jacob “chanced (vayyifga‘) upon a place and stopped there for the night, since the sun was setting” (Gen 28:11). By a happy coincidence, the same word vayyifga‘ has another (though somewhat rare) meaning: “entreat” or “beseech” (Jer 7:16). What is more, the word “place” (makom) was often used as a substitute for the name of God. Thus, this verse could be read so as to mean that Jacob “entreated God and stopped there for the night, since the sun was setting”—hence the evening prayer.

 

Thus, by the clever juxtaposition of these three (quite unrelated) biblical verses, the midrash is able to argue that each of the three fathers of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, founded in turn the morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. Certainly a dazzling demonstration—but is it true? If so, you have to wonder why there is no further mention of people praying regularly at these three times in the rest of the Torah, indeed, in the entire Tanakh (Bible). Surely it would have come up at some point!

 

And this in turn raises a more general question about midrash, one that people sometimes ask: Is this midrash really serious in saying what it says? I’ve always given the same answer: It certainly is—but not serious in the way a historian is serious about trying to piece together what really happened, and why. That isn’t midrash. Midrash is all about looking deeply into Scripture and finding things that aren’t obvious—and not just any kind of non-obvious thing, but something that in the process exalts the Torah and Jewish teachings. Sometimes, the cleverness involved brings a smile to your face, but considered from a distance, there isn’t anything more serious than that.

 

Shabbat shalom!