278 Shalom Carmy
work is less to join combat with academic literary Bible study than to make
his own distinctive contribution to traditional Bible study with the aid of
the modern literary methods.
Notes- Breuer’s work in this area is found in the two volumes of Pirkei Moadot (Je-
rusalem: Horeb, 1989), dealing primarily with legal portions of the Torah and with
the narratives outside of Genesis; the two-volume Pirkei Bereshit (Alon Shevut: Te-
vunot, 1998) on Genesis; and posthumously, Pirkei Mikraot (Alon Shevut: Tevunot,
2009), several chapters in which refi ne previously published essays. Aft er the com-
pletion of this chapter, there appeared Pirkei Yeshaayahu, a commentary on Isaiah
1 – 6 (Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2010), edited and with an introduction by Yosef Ofer
and with a preface by Yohanan Breuer. Th is is a verse-by-verse commentary written
in the 1960s, before Breuer’s major works on the Torah: its primary methodologi-
cal value lies in Breuer’s comments on matters of Lower Criticism. Yosef Ofer, ed.,
Shittat haBehinot shel haRav Mordechai Breuer: Kovetz Maamarim u-Teguvot (Alon
Shevut: Tevunot, 2005), contains Breuer’s early programmatic essays and later un-
collected remarks, together with a number of critical papers on his work. Th e two-
volume festschrift Sefer haYovel laRav Mordechai Breuer (edited by Moshe Bar-
Asher; Jerusalem: Aqademon, 1992) includes Breuer’s bibliography to that date. For
English statements by and about Breuer, see the following in S. Carmy, ed., Modern
Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations (Hoboken, NJ: Ja-
son Aronson, 1996): M. Breuer, “Th e Study of Bible and the Primacy of the Fear of
Heaven: Compatibility or Contradiction?” (159 – 80); S. Carmy, “Introducing Rabbi
Breuer” (147 – 58); and S. Z. Leiman, “Response to Rabbi Breuer” (181 – 88). - Joseph Soloveitchik, Th e Lonely Man of Faith (New York: Doubleday, 1992),
originally published as a lengthy essay in 1965 in the journal Traditi on. - Concerning these commentators, see chapters 6 and 7 by Meira Polliack and
Robert Harris in this volume. - For an academic author aware that the historical question about the intent
of the medieval pashtanim remains troubling, see Sarah Japhet, “Th e Tension Be-
tween Rabbinic Legal Midrash and the ‘Plain Meaning’ (Peshat) of the Biblical
Text: An Unresolved Problem?” in C. Cohen et al., eds., Sefer Moshe: Th e Moshe
We i n f e l d Me m o r i a l Vo l u m e (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004. A more recent
discussion of the subject is Moshe Arend, “On the concept of peshuto shel mikra,”
in Ha-Mikra b-Rei Mefarshav: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: Magnes,
1994), 237 – 61. Arend himself grew up against the background of Orthodox debate
about these issues in Israel at the time that Breuer was formulating his views; his
essay thus conveys something of the atmosphere of those formative debates. - On the rabbinic notions of Written and Oral Torah, see chapter 3 by Steven
Fraade in this volume.