60 Azzan Yadin-Israel
a way that accords with received extrascriptural tradition. Note further that
Rabbi Tarfon’s resistance is based on a vague recollection of a tradition he
had heard but cannot fully recollect. It is Rabbi Akiva’s midrash that helps
recover the forgotten teaching, and this is precisely the point: Rabbi Akiva’s
interpretive genius is celebrated for its utility for extrascriptural tradition.
Conclusion
Stepping back and surveying the ground we have covered, we fi nd that the
Rabbi Ishmael midrashim marginalize extrascriptural tradition, producing
a robust and articulated theory of scriptural interpretation that identifi es
Scripture itself as the most important agent in the process. Scripture fi rst
marks the verses to be interpreted; in some instances, it produces the req-
uisite interpretation (“Scripture draws an analogy” and the like); in oth-
ers, the rabbinic reader is charged with interpretation but does so having
identifi ed the general hermeneutic rules established by Scripture and the
relevant precedents it has set. Th e Rabbi Akiva midrashim, in contrast, are
much less committed to midrash, as such, and when they do interpret (this
is true of many, though not all, passages), it is with a diff erent intent — to
provide support for existing halakhot, extrascriptural traditions — and a
correspondingly diff erent method, one much less determined by the pre-
cise language and meaning of Scripture.
Th e views I have outlined in this chapter — confl icting and perhaps an-
tithetical — pose a number of challenges to generally accepted terminology.
Th e most obvious term in urgent need of refi nement is midrash, as it is not
in the least clear that the Rabbi Ishmael midrashim and the Rabbi Akiva
midrashim are engaged in the same activity. To be sure, scholars have long
recognized that certain interpretations of Scripture claim to generate new
laws, while others buttress existing traditions, and, consequently, they have
dubbed the former “constitutive” and the latter “supporting” midrash (mid-
rash mekhonen and midrash somekh), respectively. But this characteriza-
tion glosses over a more profound diff erence — can supporting midrash be
considered scriptural interpretation? For one thing, it is not clear to what
extent it constitutes meaningful interpretation, since the legal conclusions
are already known. No less important, the legal ruling precedes the mid-
rash, and its authority is independent of it — and in fact we are dealing with
two diff erent models of authority, each of which generates a diff erent ideal