106 R o b e rt A. H a r r i s
as well that each of the exegetes worked within the framework of his own,
unique method and that there was really no true consistency among their
related-but-varied understandings of Torah according to peshat.
For northern French exegetes, the moment when the concept of “Torah”
begins to shift from an exclusively omnisignifi cant understanding to one
that enabled the development of contextual exegesis may be found in the
much-celebrated methodological statement in Rashi’s comment on Gen-
esis 3:8: “I have come for no other purpose than [to explain] the plain sense
of Scripture and for the Aggadah that settles a matter of Scripture and its
sense as a word spoken according to its character (Proverbs 25:11).”16 Rashi
expands on this theme in the introduction to his Song of Songs commen-
tary, part of which I produce here:
One thing has God spoken; two have we heard (aft er Psalms 62:12). One
scriptural verse yields many meanings, and the end of the matter is that
no scriptural verse ever escapes the hold of its sense. And even though the
prophets spoke their words in allegory [dugma], one must reconcile the
allegory according to its characteristics and its order, just as the verses of
Scripture are ordered one aft er the other. I have seen for this book [Song
of Songs] many homiletical midrashim, for some of which the entire book
is arranged in one midrash, whereas others are scattered in many books
of midrash, on individual verses. But these are not reconciled according
to the language of Scripture or the order of the verses. I have intended to
capture the sense of the scriptural verses, to reconcile their explanations
according to the order. And as for the midrashim — the rabbis have fi xed
them, each midrash in its place. 17Rashi’s methodological comments provide a starting point from which
we may consider Rashi’s concept of “Torah.” For while the ever-expanding
midrashic universe of discourse (a some thousand-year process begun in
the ancient world and continuing into the Middle Ages) continued to pro-
vide new homiletical and moral interpretations of Scripture in what we
might imagine as a widening, horizontal concentric circle, Rashi’s introduc-
tion of peshuto/“plain meaning” opened up new vistas of interpretation in
a vertical direction. What I mean by the distinction between “horizontal”
and “vertical” modes of interpretation is that as long as rabbinic exegetes
continued to parse Scripture’s meaning according to midrashic norms, the
meaning of Scripture simply grew larger and more expansive — but rooted
in the same type of (mostly homiletical) interpretation: while there are