Abraham, while contemplating the sun, moon, and other natural phenomena
as all-powerful, only to see each one “fall” from omnipotence, recognized God
as an incorporeal omnipotent deity who ruled over nature and the world.
Elsewhere, an Aggadah (oral tradition) explains Isaac’s poor vision as the
result of angels’ tears dropping into his eyes during his binding; or Leah’s
unattractive appearance as the result of her crying out of fear lest she be
betrothed to her cousin Esau.
In other cases, the tales are themselves a vehicle for illustrating a law or
legal principle. When explaining how the serpent enticed Eve to eat the
forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, the Aggadic tradition notes a dis-
crepancy between God’s instruction to Adam (“Do not eat from the Tree of
Knowledge”) and Adam’s instruction to Eve (“Neither eat from nor touch
the Tree of Knowledge”). By adding to God’s instruction, Adam inadver-
tently allowed the serpent to confound Eve’s sense of obedience when she
touched the tree without consequence. From this, the Midrash derives the
legal-ethical principle “ba’al tosif,” or improperly augmenting how a com-
mandment is to be observed (such as praying four times a day rather than
three). Elsewhere, in the Book of Numbers, the Midrash imagines Moses
scolding Zimri ben Salu for cohabitating with a Midianite women. Zimri
retorts by noting that the prohibition of cohabiting with a Midiante
women would be issued only in the Book of Deuteronomy, rendering this
act technically permissible, since Numbers precedes Deuteronomy. The
Midrash disparagingly terms this and similar forms of loopholing vikuach
Zimri, the reasoning of Zimri.
The legal and folkloristic dimensions of Midrash were complemented by
a parallel oral tradition of apodictic teachings that were eventually redacted
at the end of the second century C.E. as the Mishneh. The bulk of these legal
dicta expanded and applied the laws of the Torah. For example, this collec-
tion included a more specific definition of the Torah’s rather vague definition
of work by enumerating thirty-nine categories of work based on the forms of
work performed in the construction and operation of the Temple.
Some dicta addressed civil matters. One tractate, eventually redacted as
Baba Kama, defining four types of civil damage by systematizing and
expounding the laws enumerated in Exodus 21:28–35. Other dicta defined
the rules governing marital and divorce proceedings, and fixed the Jewish cal-
endar by establishing a protocol for determining the beginning of a new
month and fiscal, ritual, agricultural, and historical new years.
These legal dicta at times had a philosophical undertone. For example, the
Mishneh defined the procedure for adjudicating capital cases so as to make it
difficult if not impossible to convict a person of a capital crime. This reflected
a deep wariness of executing an innocent person, and an implicit preference to
risk letting a guilty man go free. The presumption was that God would ulti-
mately bring this individual to justice.
The rise of Rabbinic Judaism 51