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Midrash

The teachings of the Rabbis have been preserved in a variety of different literary compendia, including the Mishnah, Talmuds and a diverse assortment of collections belonging to the genre of "Midrash", works that focus on the interpretation of Hebrew Bible as a source of ideas, values or religious law. The Talmud was only the chief outcome of a whole movement by which the Bible, both in its narrative and in its legal portions, was adapted to the new circumstances of Jewish life after the fall of the Temple. The term (Heb. midrash from darash "to search out, enquire, to study, expound ") denotes some explanation or exposition, which, in contrast to the more literal exegesis, endeavors to reach the spirit lying below the text. It may be defined as a didactic or homiletic development of some thought or theme, characterized by a more subjective, imaginative and ampliative treatment.

The movement, known by the name of Midrash, falls broadly into two classes: Midrash Halakah (walking, way, conduct), and the Midrash Haggadah (narrative [with a purpose], homily; Aramaic equivalent Aggddah; the incorrect form Agadah rests upon a mistaken etymology). The later deals with legal and ritual matters; it flourished in the schools and developed into the most subtle casuistry. The former covered all non-halakic exposition and was essentially popular. It embraced historical and other traditions; stories, legends, parables and allegories; beliefs, customs and all that may be called folk-lore. It fed itself, not upon the laws, but upon the narrative, the prophetical and the poetical writings of the Old Testament, and it had a more spiritual and ethical tone than the Halaka, In both classes, accepted tradition (written or oral) was reinterpreted in order to justify or to deduce new teaching (in its widest sense), to connect the present with a hallowed past, and to be a guide for the future; and the prevalence of this process, the innumerable different examples of its working, and the particular application of the term Midrash to an important section of Rabbinical literature complicates both the study of the subject and any attempt to treat it concisely.

The great mass of orthodox Rabbinical literature consists of (1) the independent Midrashim, and (2) the Mishna which, with its supplement the Gemara, constitutes the Talmud. Both contain Halaka and Haggada, although the Mishna itself is essentially Halaka, and the Midrashim are more especially Haggadic. The term "Midrash" denotes Rabbinic teachings that are attached to the text of the Bible, whereas the term "Mishnah" refers to teachings that are organized or formulated independently of Scipture. Whereas Mishnah mostly eschews references to scripture, midrash is transmitted as the explanation of biblical verses.

There had sprung up almost innumerable modes of "searching the Scriptures." In the quaintly ingenious manner of the times, four of the chief methods were found in the Persian word Paradise, spelt in vowelless Semitic fashion, PRDS. Each one of these mysterious letters was taken, mnemonically, as the initial of some technical word that indicated one of these four methods.

1. The one called P [peshaf] aimed at the simple understanding of words and things, in accordance with the primary exegetical law of the Talmud, "that no verse of the Scripture ever practically travelled beyond its literal meaning" — though it might be explained, homiletically and otherwise, in innumerable new ways.
2. The second, R [remes], means Hint, i.e., the discovery of the indications contained in certain seemingly superfluous letters and signs in Scripture. These were taken to refer to laws not distinctly mentioned, but either existing traditionally or newly promulgated. This method, when more generally applied, begot a kind of memoria technica, a stenography akin to the "Notarikon" of the Romans. Points and notes were added to the margins of scriptural MSS., and the foundation of the Massorah, or diplomatic preservation of the text, was thus laid.
3. The third, D [derush], was homiletic application of that which had been to that which was and would be, of prophetical and historical dicta to the actual condition of things. It was a peculiar kind of sermon, with all the aids of dialectics and poetry, of parable, gnome, proverb, legend, and the rest, exactly as found it in the New Testament.
4. The fourth, S, stood for sod, secret, mystery. This was the Secret Science, into which but few were initiated. It was theosophy, metaphysics, angelology, a host of wild and glowing visions of things beyond earth. Faint echoes of this science survive in Neoplatonism, in Gnosticism, in the Kabbalah, in "Hermes Trismegistus." But few were initiated into these things of "The Creation " and of "The Chariot," as it was also called, in allusion to Ezekiel's vision. Yet here again the power of the vague and mysterious was so strong, that the word Paradise gradually indicated this last branch, the secret science only.