Jewish Concepts of Scripture

Concepts of Scripture in the School of Rashi 109

am understanding, Mine is strength (Proverbs 8:14). [Selfl ess Torah study]

grants to such a one rulership, governance, and wisdom in judgment; re-

vealed to this one are the secrets of Torah, and he becomes like a fountain

that increases in power, like a river whose fl owing does not cease. Such a

one is modest, patient, and forgiving of insult. [Selfl ess Torah study] mag-

nifi es and exalts such a one beyond all deeds.

As it is presented in this powerful homily, “study of Torah for its own
sake” is pointedly not study that leads, say, to the rulings of Jewish law or
to the practice of Jewish liturgy or to the development of any religiously
authoritative Jewish theological observation. It rather is something that
stands on its own. And highly prized though it might have been in the
study of Talmud — where a non-authoritative rabbinic legal argument
might occupy the attention of the talmudic redactor for great lengths — it
had never been articulated as a principle by those who developed mid-
rashim that expounded biblical verses. Rabbis had, on the contrary, gener-
ally composed midrashim to articulate legal, moral, or theological insights
that were, among other things, meant to guide Jewish communities in the
practice of Jewish law or to instruct them about moral behavior or the na-
ture of the one true God. In these senses, midrash was assuredly not “study
of Torah for its own sake.” However, one can make a pretty good argument
that peshat, on the contrary, was exactly that: peshat commentaries do not
purport, for example, to instruct about Jewish behavior, to justify the oft en
untoward actions of biblical heroes, or to develop any type of systematic
theology. Peshat exegesis is solely concerned with the explication of scrip-
tural literature (the Bible’s contents) and composition (what we might call
its poetics). Most of the prominent exponents of peshat methodology do
not even address the theological underpinnings of their project, as Kara
appears to do on occasion; perhaps the principle was a given, understood
intuitively and by mutual, unspoken agreement, or perhaps no need for a
principled argument was ever felt. All that we know for certain is that none
of its northern French practitioners wrote any tractates to justify the appli-
cation of peshat methodology to biblical texts.22
Kara returns to the theme of knowing God through contextual explica-
tion of Scripture in his comment on Isaiah 5:8 – 10.23

Incline your ear and surrender yourself to Scripture! For each and ev-

ery Scriptural text that the Rabbis have expounded — may their souls dwell

in goodness! — inasmuch as they told a midrash about it, they themselves