Genesis Rabbah 39.1 - Part 2

Forms in Midrash

In Part 1, I offered a reading of Genesis Rabbah 39.1 with notes on the Hebrew text and translation. In this post, Part 2 in the series, I will describe two important forms of midrash that appear in the same passage.

(Note: The underlying Hebrew of Genesis Rabbah is בראשית רבה (Bereishit Rabbah). Therefore, I will use the customary abbreviation, BR.)

BR 39.1 contains the two most common forms of midrash, the petiḥta (opening or proem) and the mashal (parable).

The Petiḥta

Petiḥta is an Aramaic word describing the form that begins with “Rabbi X פתח” = “Rabbi X opened (his discourse)." The petiḥta is characterized by the linking of at least two verses of scripture – first, a distant verse, usually taken from Ketuvim (Writings, the third section of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible), leading to the close verse, the verse of Torah being interpreted.

The Mashal

The mashal is the rabbinic version of the parable. Like almost all meshalim, the mashal in Genesis Rabbah has two parts: the mashal-proper (the traveler and the burning birah) and the nimshal, its narrative application. The mashal is a simple fictional narrative that begins with a phrase such as משל לאחד ש- (“This may be compared to someone who . . .”). The nimshal begins with a phrase such as כך לפי ש-(“Thus, accordingly, would . ..”). The nimshal usually ends with a scripture that serves as its climax and/or leads to the close verse of the petiḥta.

Interpreting the nimshal can be challenging because its elements do not often correspond precisely to the elements of the mashal. For example, in the mashal of BR 39:1, the man in the mashal is depicted as “traveling from place to place,” but in the nimshal Abram is not; in the mashal, the birah is depicted as “burning" but in the nimshal the world is not. The manner in which interpreters deal with these gaps between the mashal and the nimshal will affect their understanding of the mashal and of the petiḥta as a whole. For more on the mashal in the context of the petiḥta , see Stern 1991, 159-66.

Structure of the Petiḥta

Underlying the structure of the petiḥta is the rabbinic view that Scripture is a unity. Every verse, even every word, is integrally tied to every other. With the close verse in mind as the goal of his discourse, the darshan (the maker of the midrash) begins the petiḥta with the distant verse. He can do this with confidence, because he knows that the two verses must be linked to each other. In BR 39.1, the darshan begins with Ps 45:11, the distant verse, and concludes with Gen 12:1, the close verse. In the body of the petiḥta, he had at his disposal a variety of ways to move from the distant to the close verse. In BR 39.1, the body of the midrash is a mashal. At the conclusion of the mashal, the darshan resumes Ps 45 at verse 12 and concludes with “Hence, And the LORD spoke to Abram.”

This is the four-part structure of BR 39.1, a typical petiḥta —

1. Rabbi So-and-So פתח (opened his discourse) with a distant verse (Ps 45:11)

2. The body of the petiḥta - mashal of the burning birah

3. Transitional verse (in this case Ps 45:12)

3. Conclusion, including the close verse (Gen 12:1)

Here is my translation formatted in green (the framework of the petiḥta) and blue (the mashal).

[“And ------- said to Abram, Go forth from your land, etc.]

DISTANT VERSE— R. Isaac opened his discourse [at Ps 45:11]: “Listen, O daughter, and consider, and incline you ear; forget also you own people, and your father's house.”

Mashal-proper — Rabbi Isaac said: “This may be compared to someone who would travel from place to place, and he saw a burning birah. He said: ‘Is it possible that no one is responsible for this birah?’ The owner of the birah looked down at him [from an upper floor] and said: ‘I am the owner of the birah.’”

Nimshal — Thus would our father Abraham say: “Is it possible that that no one is responsible for the world?” The Holy One, blessed be he, looked down at him [from above] and said: “I am the owner of the world.”

Transitional verse — So let the King desire your beauty, for he is your Lord (Ps 45:12). So let the King desire your beauty. To beautify you in the world. And to bow down to him (Ibid.).

Conclusion, including the CLOSE VERSE — Hence, And the LORD spoke to Abram.

Dynamics of the Petiḥta

An effective petiḥta brings its audience or readers along on a journey from the distant verse to the close verse. This involves building narrative momentum that mixes a sense of continuity with surprise and perhaps a bit of ambiguity until the climax in the close verse. Since a live audience probably, and readers almost certainly, would have been aware of the close verse all along, achieving both continuity and surprise required great skill.

On reviewing the petiḥta, gaps, seams, and other continuities may challenge preliminary interpretations on several levels. (In Part 3 of this series, I will explore some of these challenges via my interaction with Paul Mandel's the reading of BR 39.1.) In some cases, these discontinuities may be the accidental by-product of juxtaposing several narratives. However, these phenomena are so common that it is reasonable to begin with the assumption that they are there by design. (See Stern 1991, 74-82.)

In “Dialogic Reading in the Rabbinic Exegetical Narrative,” Joshua Levinson explores dynamics that are present when a biblical and a midrashic narrative interact. In this kind of midrash, the close reader oscillates between the two narratives, coupling a sense that she is gaining an increasingly coherent grasp of the midrash with a continued awareness that there are loose ends that may resist all attempts to be tied up.

In the case of the petiḥta, there may be more than two narratives. In BR 39.1 there are four narratives— Ps 45:11-12 (probably representing the narrative in vss. 9-15), the mashal-proper, the nimshal, and Gen.12:1ff. The reading I offered in Part 1 only touched on the interpretive possibilities opened up by the juxtaposition of these narratives.

In Part 3 of this series, I will interact with Paul Mandel's exceptional reading of this midrash. Mandel raises some key issues and offers a reading of the midrash that differs with mine.

Bibliography

Levinson, Joshua. “Dialogic Reading in the Rabbinic Exegetical Narrative.” Poetics Today 25:3 (Fall 2004), pp.497-528. Stern, David. Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991