104 Robert A. Harris
root of this word is derash; in biblical Hebrew, this root generally means
“to seek” or “to demand” or “to inquire” (typical usages can be found in
Genesis 25:22, Deuteronomy 4:29, Isaiah 55:6). In later biblical Hebrew, the
root came to be used specifi cally for an act of searching out meaning in
the Torah book: “For Ezra had dedicated himself to study the Teaching of
the lord [literally “to search in the Torah of YHWH”] so as to observe it,
and to teach laws and rules to Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Th is usage was particu-
larly signifi cant in rabbinic thought and became the bedrock of rabbinic
method for fi nding signifi cance in Torah: “midrash,” as it was employed
in any of the many ancient rabbinic texts, came to be understood as “that
which is (rabbinically) sought in Scripture.” Th us conceived, all of ancient
rabbinic literature (Mishna, Toseft a, Talmud, and the many collections
of midrashim), whether legal or nonlegal in nature, encompasses books
of midrash.
A term that has gained currency in describing the classical rabbinic
(i.e., “midrashic”) point of view regarding Scripture is “omnisignifi cance,” a
term coined by James Kugel. Kugel defi ned this as
the basic assumption underlying all of rabbinic exegesis that the slightest
details of the biblical text have a meaning that is both comprehensible and
signifi cant. Nothing in the Bible . . . ought to be explained as the product
of chance, or, for that matter, as an emphatic or rhetorical form, or any-
thing similar, nor ought its reasons to be assigned to the realm of Divine
unknowables. Every detail is put there to teach something new and impor-
tant, and it is capable of being discovered by careful analysis. 7Kugel accurately describes midrashic discourse as including “a thorough-
going lack of interest in any deducible principle of composition in the
Bible, or in explaining peculiarities of expression stylistically.”8 As we shall
see, it is precisely the development away from omnisignifi cant conception
of Scripture and toward a contextual, essentially literary conception that is
the subject of this chapter.
Omnisignifi cant, midrashic understanding of Scripture’s essence changed
dramatically in Europe during the so-called Renaissance of the 12th cen-
tury (a period that encompasses much of the 11th and 13th centuries, as
well).9 I am referring to the development of peshat, either “plain sense”
or “contextual” exegesis.10 To be sure, this development found its roots in
the changed patterns of interpretations that took place in the Karaite and
(later) Rabbanite reactions to the rise of Islam and the concomitant cul-