Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash Read Free Page B

argues that

    if the view which Maimonides rejected brought the aggada too close to the plain meaning, his answer [Maimonides'] does not take sufficiently into consideration the difference between the midrash and stories which are purely fictions. It is certainly correct that the drash gives greater freedom of movement to the personal character of the interpreter than does the plain sense, and the aggadic drash is "freer" than the halakic, which even Maimonides took seriously . . . but not infrequently the darshanim cited logical proofs for their midrash and also rejected the interpretations of their colleagues; also the most serious controversies between the sages of Israel and the sectarians and Christians were carried on with the methods of midrash . . . [p. 3]

    Heinemann's argument means that midrash is encoded as biblical interpretation and not mainly as poetry or homiletic—on its textual surface. 8 To take it as something else is analogous to the error of taking ancient historiography as fiction, merely because the "facts" described do not jibe with our reading of documents. 9 Heinemann has accomplished through his rhetoric a "demonstration'' that none of the previous theoretical understandings of midrash aggada is adequate to the subject.

    It must be said that Heinemann's interpretation of the Rambam here is open to question. The claims that Maimonides is making in the passage may be much more limited in scope than Heinemann implies and perhaps best understood in the light of several other passages in the Guide of the Perplexed . It is beyond the scope of the present study to attempt a fuller reading of the Rambam; 10 however, the view of the aggada as a kind of praiseworthy sophistry or homiletic fiction has been common among many up until the present day, whether or not it is a correct representation of the Rambam's position. For example we can cite the following statement of Joseph Heinemann (no relation to Isaak), an influential recent student of midrash:

    Much of aggadic exegesis is, therefore, a kind of parable or allegory.

    The aggadists do not mean so much to clarify difficult passages in the biblical text as to take a stand on the burning questions of the day, to guide the people and strengthen their faith . But since they addressed themselves to a wide audience—including simple folk and children—they could not readily formulate the problems in an abstract way, nor could they give involved theoretical answers. In order to present their ideas in a more comprehensible and engaging fashion, the sages cast them in a narrative format and employed parables and other familiar literary means which appeal to all. 11
    This view of aggada is also the one presupposed in many studies of rabbinic thought which treat the statements of the midrash as theological or otherwise ideological utterances while tacitly denying their hermeneutical function. 12
    If we look at some of the actual interpretive work done by this Heinemann
    on the Mekilta, we will see how the a priori adoption of an extrinsic understanding of the midrashic process deflects one from reading the' next. Heine mann actually begins his discussion by arguing against the facile historical reduction of the midrash by an earlier scholar:

    The interpretation of the aggada , and especially the unveiling of its meaning for current events on the background of the circumstances of the time in which it was created, is a complex problem, which has no facile answer. This is because we cannot avoid a great deal of guesswork, when we search for the expression of opinions and the taking of stands visàvis the problems of their own time in the homilies of the rabbis on verses and in their stories which expand the biblical text. Although there is no one who disagrees that the masters of aggada had tendenzen [i.e., conscious polemical designs] and contemporary intentions in many of their utterances, however, since these tendenzen were not expressed explicitly but wore