In my Torah Study Book Study group, we are currently reading (finishing this week), Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's Moses: A Human Life, here. Zornberg has a particularly interest in midrash, and continues that interest in this book. I have other postings on midrash on this blog, so those wanting more on midrash can click the link at the bottom of this blog entry.
I recently sent this email to our group:
You may be interested in this offering from TheTorah.com: Prof.Edward L. Greenstein, Where Are God’s Tears in Lamentations?, here:
The opening sets it up nicely:
Tears abound in Lamentations: the poet cries, the people cry, even the city cries, but God does not. In contrast, the gods and goddesses of ancient Near Eastern city laments, cry along with their people. Midrash Eichah Rabbah, seemingly uncomfortable with such a callous depiction of God, rereads Lamentations to include God weeping.
That is just the opening. A really good read.
This reminds me of the midrash I mentioned that I got from Avivah Zornberg about God rebuking the angels who were celebrating the death of the Egyptians by drowning. I originally heard this in a Krista Tippett interview of Zornberg back in 2005. The audio and transcript of that interview, titled The Transformation of Pharaoh, Moses, and God, is here. Here is the relevant excerpt:
DR. ZORNBERG: * * * * What you find in the midrashic versions, many multiple narratives, is an emphasis on the complexity of the Israelite experience and the fact that, immediately they land on the other side, they begin to complain and sin, essentially to doubt the whole story of redemption. In other words, nothing is absolute. And the fact that the Israelites are witnessing the deaths of the Egyptians, that is something, according to a very famous and beautiful midrash, that means that the angels in heaven are not allowed to sing a song of praise. God stops them singing, because ‘the creatures of My hand, the work of My hands, are dying in the sea. How can you be singing a song of praise?’
MS. TIPPETT:And God is speaking of the Egyptians.
DR. ZORNBERG:He’s speaking of the Egyptians, at least in certain versions of the midrash. In other versions, He’s speaking of the Israelites, who are also on the edge. So there is a sense here of the pathos of the human condition. And the Israelites are very aware of that. Their song and their dance — the women play a special role, again, in this story; they sing separately — has to do with the kind of faith that is required to live in a condition in which rapture doesn’t usually come unalloyed. It comes with a sadness and a tension involved in it. So “The Particulars of Rapture,” that wonderful line from a poem by Wallace Stevens, I had in mind the subtleties and the complexities of all the many stories, like the stories that are hidden within the apparent grand narrative.
There is the grand narrative which can be told very simply, and you could say it’s a kind of children’s story, and then there are all the details, which really make the experience, even the details that one isn’t totally aware of oneself and which emerge sometimes only on retelling.
I love this about midrash (and rabbinic interpretation to extent it differs from midrash) which permits us to go beyond the ancient and cryptic text to understand God, as the community evolves, in ways not necessarily apparent from the text.
Here is a midrashic interpretation I offered a member of our group. It relates to the story of Balaam (you’ll recall, Balaam of the talking donkey episode in Numbers 22:21-39). Before that event, Balak, King of Moab, in order to get rid of the Israelite community in his territory, asked Balaam (a non-Israelite) to come and curse the Israelites for which he would be rewarded. Balaam consulted with God who told Balaam not to go. On God's command, Balaam refused to go. The messengers told Balak who sent them back with more promises of reward for Balaam. Balaam consulted God again who, according to the text said he could go but must follow God’s command. One of the mysteries is why God changed his mind. The only difference between the first encounter and the second is that more "bribe" was offered.
ReplyDeleteHere is my midrash on that:
Balaam was tempted by the offers of wealth on the second try and hence when God spoke to him, what he heard was not necessarily what God said. (I have seen instances of that when people claim that God told them to do something evil.) So, he had motivated reasoning to interpret what God said as permission to go but, in fact, God did not give him permission to go. From Balaam’s motivated reasoning standpoint, he could go and hold out the possibility of reward, although he still must follow God’s commands once he got there.
Perhaps my “midrash” could explain (via further midrash) the talking donkey episode. Perhaps not.