Session Three
The Way of Imagination: Midrash
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Midrash Aggadah
Midrash Aggadah is what happens when the imagination runs wild
with Scripture, playing with stories, words, missing words, contradictions,
letters, punctuation -- whatever is there or isn't there. Our
Sages of blessed memory who created the classic works of Midrash
were immersed in the Bible. They knew it by heart, they lived
and breathed it, and they were uniquely qualified to notice what
was unusual or missing in it and to talk in its own language.
But we can make Midrash Aggadah too, if we read the Torah with
attention and imagination and creativity.
Here are some texts of Midrash Aggadah that especially draw me.
They illustrate ways of connecting with God through the imagination
-- as the Midrash Aggadah says, "If you want to know the one who
spoke and brought the world into being, study Aggadah."
Midrash Aggadah text |
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From Midrash Aseret haDibrot (Midrash on the Ten Commandments)
near the beginning:
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The great sea surrounds the world, like a capital on a great column.
And the whole world rests on the fins of Leviathan, who is in
the lower waters, where he is comparable to a little fish in the
sea. And the lower waters are upon the waters of creation, and
the waters of creation are upon Okeanos, and the waters of Okeanos
are upon the waters of crying. And why are they called the waters
of crying? Because the Blessed Holiness, in dividing the waters,
placed half of them on high and half of them below. Those placed
below began crying and saying, "Oy to us, that we did not merit
to be close to our Creator!"
And they brazenly attempted to rise up on high, until the Blessed
Holiness got angry at them and pushed them down underfoot. Then
they said before the Blessed Holiness: "It is revealed and known
before You that we acted for the sake of Your glory."
The Blessed Holiness said to them: "Know for certain that I will
not give permission to the upper waters to sing before Me until
they receive permission from you."
As it is written: "From the voice of the many waters, the breakers
of the sea are mighty, mighty on high is HaShem." (Psalm 93: 4)
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Commentary
What I enjoy about this text is the first paragraph, but I've
included the rest for the sake of honesty, and to show how it
all connects with a verse. The verse, which mentions the voices
of the waters, apparently praising God, has become a whole story-poem
about how the world was made and what it's all about. The story
is also playing with the story of creation in Genesis, other verses
in the Bible, and ideas from ancient science. That's how it should
be: midrash is a kind of creativity that works with everything
in the artist's world-view, every idea available.
The first paragraph is a description of the world, mixing the
science and myth of the Greek-speaking ancient world with the
Bible's. "The great sea" around the world (the ocean) and "Okeanos"
(the primordial waters that everything came out of) are basically
Greek ideas. "The lower waters" under the world, and "the waters
of creation" are based on the wording of the creation story in
Genesis. The author of the Midrash has blended these ideas together
to give a picture of a world that is bigger and deeper and more
mysterious than either Greek ideas or the text of the Bible would
suggest.
The Leviathan is mentioned in Genesis and in various other places
in the Bible. It is basically a primeval sea-monster from pre-Jewish
mythology. According to some passages in the Bible and in ancient
myths and other Midrash, God had to fight the Leviathan, the monster
of watery chaos, in order to create the world. But we also see
(Psalm 104:26) that God created the Leviathan to play with --
which is an amazing image. Other Midrashim tell us that when Mashiach
comes we will all get to eat the Leviathan and sit in a "sukkah"
of its skin -- this is mentioned in the prayers of Sukkot. That
is, we will take in that destructive, random power and be nourished
and sheltered by it. The Leviathan is nothing if not big -- so
the picture in this Midrash, that the "lower waters" under the
world are so big that the Leviathan is like a little fish in them
-- is awesome. But it is most awesome, and mysterious, that the
world rests on the Leviathan's fins.
Even beyond that, the world rests on one level after another of
water -- subterranean water? womb water? -- until , under everything
else, it rests on tears -- the "waters of crying". As far as I
know these waters are not mentioned in Greek myths or the Bible;
they mark the point where this Midrash moves from the language
of myth to the language of personal feelings and inward spirituality,
because really the "waters of crying" are our tears at being distant
from God. Somehow a sense of distance and longing for connection
are what keep the world afloat.
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From Yalkut Shim'oni [a medieval collection of Midrash], on Psalms,
#843, on Psalm 91:15 |
"I am with him in trouble" (Psalm 91:15)
Rabbi Yudan said: A parable! To what can this utterance be compared?
To a pregnant woman who had a quarrel with her mother, and her
mother went upstairs. And when she was giving birth she was crying
out downstairs, and her mother, upstairs, was listening to her
voice and she was crying out also, echoing her. The neighbour
women were saying to her, "What's going on? Are you giving birth
along with her?" She said to them, "My daughter is having trouble
giving birth. Even though she has made me angry, I cannot bear
her crying out, so I am crying out along with her." Thus, the
Blessed Holiness says: "My House is in ruins and My children's
necks are in chains -- shall I not be troubled?" And so it is
written, "Now, what is left for Me -- declares HaShem -- since
My people have been taken away as worthless?" (Isaiah 52:5) |
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This is a typical literary genre in Midrash, the parable. The
standard form of a Midrashic parable is like this one: it begins
with a Biblical verse (the _pasuk_), then tells a story about
people, which is the actual parable (_mashal_), then explains
how the story is really about us and God (the explanation is the
_nimshal_). There is an underlying story to this Midrash, which
is spelled out in other texts: Because of the sins of the Jewish
people, God became angry -- as the Torah warned us would happen
-- and decided to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem and bring about
the exile. (The story sees the destruction of the first Temple
by the Babylonians and the destruction of the second Temple by
the Romans as basically the same event; both involved war and
Jewish captives being led away in chains.) God therefore "went
upstairs" into heaven -- choosing not to be present on earth any
more -- and the enemies were able to bring about the destruction.
But God saw the destruction and suffering and felt it with us
-- and continues to feel all our troubles and suffering with us,
in great love.
The idea that God suffers with us seems strange to many people
today and tends to sound un-Jewish. But it is actually a major
theme of Midrash -- which finds support for it in the Bible in
many ways. This Midrash actually finds the theme in two verses,
the one from Psalms which it begins with and the one from Isaiah
which it concludes with. It's a pretty important theme to me personally;
a lot of things are easier to bear, I find, if I have the sense
that God is going through them too.
This Midrash is one of the most striking expressions of this theme;
it's noteworthy because of not only symbolizing the Jewish people
as a woman -- which is pretty much standard -- but symbolizing
God as a woman also, the mother of the woman in labour. There's
a widespread impression that Judaism only speaks of God as a father
and king. Indeed "father" and "king" parables are very common
in Midrash. But the sense of God as our mother is in our tradition
too, sometimes vividly as in this story.
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From the Talmud, Chullin 60b |
Rabbi Shim'on ben Pazi pitted one against another: "God made the
two big lights" (Genesis 1:16a) and "the big light... and the
small light" (Genesis 1:16b)!
The moon said before the Blessed Holiness: "Ruler of the World!
Is it possible for two kings to make us of the same crown?"
He said to her: "Go and make yourself smaller!"
She said before Him: "Ruler of the World! Because I said something
reasonable before You, I am to make myself smaller!?"
He said to her: "Go and rule by day and by night."
She said to him: "What importance does that have? What use is
a lamp in daylight?"
He said to her: "Go, and the Jewish people will reckon days and
years by you."
She said to Him: "It is impossible for them not to reckon seasons
by Day also, since it is written, 'And they will be for signs and for set times and for days and years'!"
(Genesis 1:14)
"Go, and holy people will be named after you: Small Jacob [see
Amos 7:2], Small Shmuel [a sage of the Talmud], Small David [see
I Samuel 17:14]."
Seeing that she had not been appeased, the Blessed Holiness said
[to the Jewish people]: "Bring an atonement sacrifice for Me,
because I made the moon smaller."
This agrees with what Rabbi Shim'on ben Lakish said: "Why is the
goat of the New Moon distinguished, in that the Torah says about
it, 'For HaShem'? The Blessed Holiness said: 'This goat will be
an atonement sacrifice for Me, because I made the moon smaller.'" |
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When we use our imaginations to connect with God, it's good to
be bold. None of our preconceived ideas about God should be sacrosanct.
It's spiritually important to let imaginative encounters with
images and ideas shake you up and pull the rug out from under
your feet. This Midrash can do that.
It begins in a typical way -- pointing out a seeming contradiction
in the Torah. The same verse talks about the sun and the moon
as "two big lights" and then it calls the sun "big" and the moon
"small"! Of course, to us this probably didn't seem like a contradiction
at all. They can both be big and one can still be bigger than
the other; also, the Hebrew "gadol" can mean "great" as in "important"
as well as "big". But deciding that there is a contradiction turns
the whole verse into a story -- there were two big lights, then
one of them was made smaller.
The story spun out by the Midrash is that the moon complained
to God about being the same size as the sun -- "two kings using
one crown" -- how would anyone tell them apart? God responded
by making her smaller. This probably refers both to the fact that
the moon usually looks smaller than the sun, and the fact that
the moon's light is not her own but a reflection of the sun's
(this was known to ancient astronomers), and to the waning of
the moon in the course of a month, into darkness.
The moon was deeply hurt -- after all, God evidently agreed with
her that one should be smaller; why should she be punished for
bringing it up? God gave her various gifts and promises to make
up to her, but she was still hurt.
The story concludes by using another Torah verse and another midrashic
technique: playing with missing information. The Torah (Num. 28:15)
says that a goat should be sacrificed in the Temple on every New
Moon (Rosh Chodesh) as "an atonement sacrifice, for HaShem" but
it doesn't explain what sin is being atoned for. The Midrash answers
the question by reading the verse literally: "an atonement sacrifice
_for HaShem_" must mean "for HaShem's own sin"! God asks us to
atone for God's sin in making the moon smaller. This is the boldness
of this Midrash, undermining preconceptions. Since when can God
sin?! But according to this story, God committed the first sin
-- before Adam and Eve! -- and it's so serious that it needs constant
atoning for and is constantly visible in the smallness of the
moon.
There could be many interpretations of this sin of God's. One
which I heard from Rabbi Sammy Intrator of the Carlebach Shul
in New York has stayed with me. There seems to be a contradiction
in life between expressing ourselves fully and giving room to
other people to be themselves. Very often a person who takes centre
stage arouses resentment in others. Or, even without resentment,
people may be so attracted to a person's charisma and so much
want to hear what that person has to say that they don't end up
expressing themselves. On the other hand, if we're quiet and attentive
to others we boost them but our own light doesn't shine. This
Midrash is a protest against this existential situation. It's
not right that things should be this way; it's a sin -- God's
sin! We have to find a way to both be great and help others be
great, to let our own light shine and open to the light of others,
simultaneously. If we could do that, we would be healing God's
original sin. |
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Shir ha Shirim Rabbah 5:2 |
"Tamati (my perfect one)" (Song of Songs 5:2)
... Rabbi Yannai says:
"T'omati (my twin sister)". So to speak, I am not greater than she is
and she is not greater than I am.
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Jill Hammer, editor of "Living Texts" a magazine of modern midrash
comments:
I particularly like "t'omati". In addition to referring to God
and Israel, that can also refer to men and women, and is a very
likable image, indeed. |
This text illustrates another important technique of Midrash:
puns. A teacher of mine, Joseph Cohen of Toronto, once defined
Kabbalah as "a science that takes punning seriously" and this
applies to Midrash as well as Kabbalah.
The Song of Songs in the Bible is usually read, in Jewish tradition,
as an image for the love between God and the Jewish people. Whatever
the male lover in the Song says to the female lover is what God
says to the Jewish people. This Midrash takes this reading of
the Song of Songs as a starting point, but turns around the assumptions
about gender. God (the male lover in the Song) calls us (the woman)
"tamati", "my perfect one". Rabbi Yannai, making a pun, turns
this into "t'omati" -- which means "my twin sister". So God is
calling us, the Jewish people (we can legitimately extend this
and understand it as us, humanity) -- Her twin sister. Why? Because
-- God says, according to this Midrash -- we are equal.
Connecting with God through the imagination involves finding new
images and ideas which can be vivid to us in a way that old ones
may not be. In Judaism we mostly work with images of God as male.
Here the image is clearly of God as female. We mostly work with
ideas of God as on high, all-powerful, infinitely greater than
we are; here God claims that we are equal. To really take in these
images and ideas can open us to connecting to God in new, deeper
ways. |
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These texts are surprising and I would be surprised if they haven't
provoked some questions, or objections, or comments as you've read them. Module Three will also list some of my questions.
What further interpretations can you offer to these Midrashic stories and images? Please do share your responses;
there may be many discoveries to make together. |
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