Tales And Maxims From The Midrash

9781465579546

196 pages

Library of Alexandria

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Overview

JUST as the Written Law given by Moses emanates from God, whilst He Himself only proclaimed the first two commandments of the Decalogue, owing to the Israelites being too terrified to hear God's voice (Deut. 20. 19), and the whole of the Torah was then conveyed to Israel by Moses, so he likewise received the Oral law, which he was not allowed to commit to writing. This Oral law had to be taught by word of mouth side by side with the Written law, and thus the former became an unfolding and sequel to the latter. This, says the Midrash,1 is meant by the words: 'Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the words—????? meaning "words" as well as "things"—which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life' (Deut. 4. 9). 'The words which thine eyes have seen' means the Written words which can be seen, and 'lest they depart from thy heart' refers to the Oral law, words committed to memory, laid up in the heart. From time immemorial, during the time of the prophets and even earlier, the Israelites had established schools or assemblies for the teaching of the Torah. To the places of worship schools were invariably attached in which religion was taught, the Torah was read and exegetically expounded. Whenever a portion of Holy Writ was read a ??? (Drash)—a searching inquiry—into the meaning of every sentence was made, with explanations drawn therefrom, based on the Oral law. Not only was this the case on Sabbaths and Festivals, but on week-days too, especially so on Mondays and Thursdays, when a small portion of the Torah was read, an institution ascribed to Ezra.1 Later on—probably in the time of the Maccabees—the reading of the prophets was also introduced. The dissertations and expositions which were held were known as ???? (Midrash), and this term was originally applied to both the ???? (Halacha) and the ???? (Agada).