41 Midrash Rabbah (MidRab) 42

berg’s collection Legends of the Jews and thinkers like books of the Torah and the so-called “five megillot,”
Martin Buber. DeMille combines the ancient sour- or scrolls (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Eccle-
ces and depicts Moses as king, prophet, and messi- siastes, and Esther). The word “Rabbah” was first
anic figure. For Philo, Moses was a king, priest, and applied to Genesis or Bereshit Rabbah (BerR) (redacted
prophet. His target audience was mainly a non-Jew- late 4th–early 5th cent., although the precise date
ish readership. Josephus depicts Moses using the remains uncertain), which presents exegetical mid-
analogy of the Greek heroes (e.g., Aeneas in Vergil’s rashim on the whole of the book of Genesis. It is
Aeneid) as well as the Roman heroes: ideal, virtuous not known why the adjective “Rabbah” (lit. great)
leaders. Here again, the target audience is a non- was employed, but it is theorized that it is either
Jewish readership. Moses is a lawgiver just like Mi- because the midrash was a compendious (great) col-
nos. In Josephus’ opinion, Moses isn’t a half-god, lection of interpretations of verses and narratives
but he does have “direct” contact with God, unlike from the book of Genesis, or because the opening
other people. By combining the different sources, proem is attributed to “the great Rabbi Hoshaya
Moses of the Bible turns into a messianic leader in (Hoshaya Rabbah),” a first-generation amora of the
DeMille’s film, which is a daring Jewish-Christian land of Israel (ca. 200 CE). “Rabbah” then was ap-
mix based on ancient authors, but subordinated to plied to the midrashim on the other books of the
his own vision. DeMille’s Ten Commandments is still Torah, and subsequently, upon the collection of all
the ultimate “Moses movie” of all times. Ignoring ten midrashim – on the Torah and the Five Scrolls –
Jewish ritual elements, DeMille reduces the Torah in an edition produced in Venice in 1545. The
to the Ten Commandments, binding for both Jews works in the collection reached the form in which
and Christians. we have them today through a process of oral repe-
Films are to be considered as a primary source tition, scribal inscription, anthologization, and re-
like a midrash or other texts. They, too, comment daction that lasted approx. 800 years.
on elements of tradition, reinterpret biblical figures 2. Individual Works. a. On the Pentateuch. Indi-
or develop a Jewish counter-history. They are mod- vidual works of midrash may be classified as either
ern commentaries on Jewish culture and Jewish life, aggadic (nonlegal) or halakhic (legal); tannaitic (70–
but also shape the public image of Judaism and 200 CE, Palestine) or amoraic (200–500 CE, Pales-
texts like the Bible. Thus it is very important to con- tine and Babylonia); exegetical or homiletical. Mid-
textualize these films and to analyze their back- rash Rabbah consists of both exegetical midrashim
grounds and how they present the Jewish sources. (those that closely interpret biblical words, verses,
Bibliography: ■ Babington, B./P. W. Evans, Biblical Epics: Sa- and narratives) and more broadly homiletical mid-
cred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester 1993). rashim (those that provide theological interpreta-
■ Burnette-Bletsch, R. (ed.), The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of tion that follows a generic structure not strictly tied
the Bible and Its Reception in Film, pt. 2. (HBR 2; Berlin/Boston, to the lemmatic progression of the book) (see e.g.,
Mass. 2016). ■ Noerdlinger, H. S., Moses and Egypt: The Docu- “Leviticus, Book of III. B. Rabbinic Judaism”; “Lam-
mentation to the Motion Picture, The Ten Commandments (Los
entations, Book of II. B. Rabbinic Judaism”). These
Angeles, Calif. 1956). ■ Reinhartz, A., Bible and Cinema: An
Introduction (New York 2013). ■ Shepherd, D. J., The Bible works are primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic with
on Silent Film: Spectacle, Story and Scripture in the Early Cinema some Greek loan words.
(Cambridge 2013). ■ Wright, M. J., Moses in America: The The redaction histories of the individual texts
Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative (Oxford 2003). of the anthology are complex and varied. Bereshit
Klaus Davidowicz (Genesis) Rabbah is the oldest of the exegetical mid-
rashim of the Midrash Rabbah library, its redaction
See also / Intertextuality; / Legend likely dating from the late 4th–early 5th century
CE. BerR consists of ninety-seven parashiyot (para-
graphs) in some editions, 101 in others, and these
Midrash aśeret ha-dibberot typically make use of proems as an organizing de-
/ Ten Commandments vice (see “Bereshit Rabbah”). A proem (Aram. pe-
tihø ta; pl. petihø tot) is a sort of sermon in miniature,
which opens with a verse often drawn from the
books of the Prophets, which is then connected exe-
Midrash Rabbah (MidRab)
getically to the target verse, i.e., the lectionary verse
I. Rabbinic Judaism drawn from the book at hand. The proems focus
II. Medieval Judaism on the first verses read each week according to the
III. Modern Judaism
triennial lectionary schedule of the early synagogue,
a reading cycle which stretched over approx. three
I. Rabbinic Judaism and a half years. The sages of BerR look through the
1. Introduction. Midrash Rabbah (MidRab) is the ti- prism of wisdom literature to see, in even the first
tle given to the medieval anthology of rabbinic bib- word of Torah, a clue to cosmic beginnings through
lical interpretation (midrash) connected to the five Torah: “‘In the beginning [bereshit] God created’

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 19

© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2021
43 Midrash Rabbah (MidRab) 44
[Gen 1:1]: And ‘beginning’ means Torah, as it is with the publication of the ten works together in
written, ‘The Lord created me at the beginning (re- anthologized form (Venice, 1545) that MidRab began
shit) of his work’ [Prov 8:22].” to be more widely disseminated. The earlier works
Exodus Rabbah (Shemot Rabbah) appears to com- are typically written in Hebrew and either Palesti-
bine a 10th-century text in chs. 1–14 with earlier nian or Babylonian Aramaic with Greek loan words.
midrashim in chs. 15–52. Latin phrases and expressions occur in the works
Leviticus Rabbah (Wayiqra Rabbah), the homilet- redacted later (i.e., EkhR, ShemR, BemR).
ical midrash on the book of Leviticus, dating from Neusner suggests that BerR and WayR constitute
late 5th–early 6th centuries CE, consists of thirty- the rabbinic response to the Christianization of the
seven homiletical interpretations of words, verses, Roman Empire. In his view, BerR’s exegesis of the
or themes in Leviticus, the vast majority of which biblical creation narrative emphasizes the interpre-
begin with proems. WayR emphasizes aggadah, or tation of the present in light of the past, whereas
nonlegal exegesis of Leviticus, over exposition of Christianity, which understood the messianic prom-
halakhah, the laws which comprise the vast major- ise to have been fulfilled, interprets the past in light
ity of the biblical book itself. According to Bregman of the redeemed present. Hence, the rabbinic theol-
ogy of history is articulated throughout aggadic
(1997), Numbers Rabbah (Bemidbar Rabbah) attained
midrashim from late antiquity (BerR, WayR, PesRK,
its final form in southern France sometime after the
EkhR, RutR). As evidenced especially in BerR and
11th century. Deuteronomy Rabbah DevR occurs in
WayR, the amoraic sages understood the biblical
different versions, dating variously to the 4th and
text as the template upon which God’s design for
8th century CE. ShemR, BemR, and DevR are classi-
history is stamped, and aggadic midrash as the
fied as Tanh uma-Yelammedenu midrashim, so means by which that design was detected and artic-
named from R. Tanh uma b. Abba’s homilies, and ulated. Bregman highlights MidRab’s open-ended
from the repeated statement yelammedenu rabbenu nature, a literary quality that, while never itself at-
(“Let our rabbi teach us”). taining canonical status, confers upon the collection
b. On the Five Scrolls. In Song of Songs Rabbah a sense of “accessible canon,” through which it at-
(Shir ha-shirim Rabbah; late 6th/early 7th cent. CE), tains both corporate identity and broad popularity.
the rabbinic sages interpret the Song as, “a hidden The interpretations of the Torah and the Five
allegory of covenant love” between God and the Scrolls contained therein are instrumental in creat-
Jewish people (Fishbane 2015: xx). Ruth Rabbah ing successive and overlapping communities of
(RutR; ca. 500 CE) features interpretation of the readers and interpreters who, in taking up rabbinic
Ruth narrative. Lamentations Rabbah (Ekhah Rab- exegetical ingenuity, link the reader of these works
bah), redacted in the late 5th–early 6th century CE, to the ancestral and covenantal narratives through
focuses on events said to have occurred on the Ninth which Jewish peoplehood is established and re-
of Av, the date in the Hebrew calendar marking the newed.
destruction of the first and second temples, i.e., 586 Bibliography: ■ Bregman, M., “Midrash Rabbah and the
BCE and 70 CE. Ecclesiastes Rabbah (Qohelet Rabbah; Medieval Collector Mentality,” Prooftexts 17 (1997) 63–76.
8th cent. CE), an aggadic commentary on the book ■ Fishbane, M., Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford

of Ecclesiastes, and Esther Rabbah EstR (a composite 1988). ■ Fishbane, M., The JPS Bible Commentary (Philadel-
phia, Pa. 2015). ■ Jaffe, M., Torah in the Mouth (Oxford
text, ca. 5th and 11th cent.), complete the Midrash
2001). ■ Kern-Ulmer, R., “Hermeneutics, Techniques of
Rabbah works on the megillot. Rabbinic Exegesis,” in EnMi, vol. 1 (ed. J. Neusner/A. Avery-
3. Anthologization Process. Early manuscripts Peck; Leiden/Boston, Mass. 2005) 268–92. ■ Mandel, P.,
testify to MidRab’s gradual evolution into its current The Origins of Midrash (Leiden 2017). ■ Neusner, J., Compara-
anthological form. Among the earliest are those in tive Midrash (Atlanta, Ga. 1996). ■ Neusner, J., “Genesis in
Genesis Rabbah,” in EnMi, vol. 1 (ed. J. Neusner/A. Avery-
the British Library (Add. 27169/340), comprising
Peck; Leiden/Boston, Mass. 2005) 88–105. ■ Stemberger,
only BerR and WayR, dating to before 1000 CE, and G., Midrasch (Munich 1989). ■ Stemberger, G., Introduction
a Paris manuscript (Bibliothèque Nationale héb. to the Talmud and Midrash (trans. M. Bockmuehl; Edinburgh
149) containing, in addition to those midrashic 2
1996); trans. of id., Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch (Mu-
works, parts of BemR, which dates to the 12th cen- nich 81992). ■ Theodor, J., “Zur Composition der Aga-

tury, and EstR, which dates to the end of the 13th dischen Homilien,” in Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wis-
senschaft des Judentums 28 (1879) 500–10. ■ Theodor, J./C.
century. The scribe who assembled MidRab referred
Albeck (eds.), Midrash Bereshit Rabba, 3 vols. (Jerusalem 21996
to each midrashic book as a “rabbah.” Bregman [= Berlin/Jerusalem 1903–36]). ■ Visotzky, B., Golden Bells
speculates that the earliest collated copies of Midrash and Pomegranates (Tübingen 2003). ■ Zunz, L., Die gottes-
Rabbah on the Five Books of Moses were compiled dienstlichen Vorträge der Juden historisch entwickelt (Berlin 1832).
in 15th-century Sephardic communities. The collec- David N. Gottlieb
tion was first known as “Midrash Rabbot,” but
sometime after the midrashim on the Five Scrolls II. Medieval Judaism
were added, it came to be known as Midrash Rabbah. The collection of rabbinic interpretations of the
The midrashim on the Pentateuch were first pub- Pentateuch and Five Megillot now known as Mid-
lished together in Constantinople (1512), but it was rash Rabbah is comprised of expositions composed in

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 19

© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2021
45 Midrash Rabbah (MidRab) 46
late-antique Palestinian centers of Rabbinic Judaism tury Spain where, as testified by surviving invento-
together with works that were completed in the ries of books, these expositions were among the
middle ages. Among the latest texts are ShemR, the most popular midrashim. Several Sefardi copies
first part of which has been dated to the 10th or were produced in the same location and two (Bod-
11th centuries. Bemidbar Rabbah likely reached its leian MS. Opp. Add. fol. 3 and National Library of
present form among the Jewish communities of Israel MS 24°5977) appear to have been written by
Provence which, particularly through the activities the same scribe. The earliest evidence that the mid-
of Moses ha-Darshan, were prominent centers of ex- rashim on the Five Megillot were studied as a collec-
egesis in the 11th century. tion is a manuscript written in Sefardi script in
Though composed in different periods and loca- 1513, perhaps in the Ottoman Empire (Bodleian
tions, the ten “Rabbah” (“great”) midrashim gradu- MS. Seld. A. Sup. 102). The 16th-century Sefardi ed-
ally assumed a collective identity. Bereshit Rabbah itors and printers who published these collections
and WayR were copied together in the British Li- of midrashim on the Pentateuch and Five Megillot
brary manuscript (Add. 27169), dated approx. thus perpetuated existing approaches to reading
1060–1170. The manuscript in the Bibliothèque and studying the texts.
Nationale (hébr. 149), copied in 1291 in Arles, adds Bibliography: ■ Bregman, M., “Midrash Rabba and the Me-
the initial chapters of BemR to this collection. But dieval Collector Mentality,” in The Anthology in Jewish Litera-
individual Rabbah midrashim were also transmit- ture (ed. D. Stern; Oxford 2004) 196–208. ■ Saperstein, M.,
ted alongside other expositions and MS Parma “R. Isaac b. Yedayah: A Forgotten Commentator on the Ag-
3122, copied in 1270, combines texts including gada,” REJ 138 (1979) 17–45. ■ Ta-Shma, I., “An Unpub-
DevR, EkhR, Midrash Tanhø uma, and PesRab. lished Franco-German Commentary on Bereshit and Vayikra
Rabba, Mekilta and Sifre,” in id., Studies in Medieval Rabbinic
A number of commentaries on Rabbah mid-
Literature, vol. 1 (Jerusalem 2004) 96–114. [Heb.] ■ Wil-
rashim were composed in the late-11th and 12th liams, B., “Gnats, Flies, Fleas, and a Camel – A Case Study
centuries. According to Ta-Shma, the definitions of in the Reception of Genesis Rabba,” JQR 107 (2017) 157–81.
obscure words and interpretations listed in the Liq-
qutin mi-Bereshit Rabbah represent the earliest en- III. Modern Judaism
deavors of Ashkenazi scholars to explain the textual The ten midrashim of Midrash Rabbah were first
uncertainties, obscure vocabulary, and unfamiliar printed at the press of David and Samuel ibn Nah -
Aramaic expressions they encountered in Palesti- mias in Constantinople. The midrashim on the Pen-
nian midrashim. The medieval Ashkenazic com- tateuch and the Five Megillot were issued in sepa-
mentary on BerR that has, at least since the 16th rate volumes called Sefer Rabbot (1512) and Midrash
century, been spuriously attributed to Rashi is Hø amesh Megillot (1514). The independent publica-
likely a composite work. The first part may be as- tion of the two books with different titles suggests
cribed to an Italian scholar who studied at the that they were not considered to be a single collec-
Rhineland academies and the second to a commen- tion of midrashim. Furthermore, the heterogeneous
tator of northern France. titles of the midrashim on the Megillot (“Song of
Allegorical, philosophical, and kabbalistic Songs Rabbati,” “Midrash Ruth,” “Midrash Megil-
methods of interpretation were applied to mid- lat Esther,” “Lamentations Rabbati,” “Midrash Qo-
rashic texts in the 13th and 14th centuries. For in- helet”) create the impression of a miscellaneous
stance, Yedaiah ha-Penini Bedersi (ca. 1280–ca. collection of rabbinic expositions rather than a uni-
1340) explained the statement “the Torah was given fied whole.
in three things: in fire, in water, and in wilderness” In later editions, all ten midrashim were pub-
(BemR 1:7) to mean that three obstacles must be lished as a coherent set. They were printed together
overcome to acquire supreme wisdom: the profun- in Venice in 1545, though the sections on the Penta-
dity of the subject matter (“fire”), the distractions teuch and the Megillot had their own title-pages
of the physical world (“water”), and the scarcity of and were paginated separately. The ten texts were
adequate understanding and preparation (“wilder- first united under the title Midrash Rabbah in Salo-
ness”) (Saperstein: 27–28). A kabbalistic commen- nica in 1593.
tary on parashat Bereshit of BerR was written The Venice 1545 text, drawn principally from
around 1300 by Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi, who the Constantinople editions, was frequently re-
presented the midrash as a repository of the teach- printed. Both the text and the pagination were gen-
ings he also disclosed in his interpretation of the erally reproduced in the imprints of Di Cavalli (Ven-
Sefer Yetsirah. Joseph frequently identified particular ice, 1566) and Zanetti (Venice, 1603). The reprinting
words as symbols of the ten sefirot or their opposing of texts that had not been subjected to editorial
counterparts, designations that were sometimes scrutiny motivated the composition of commentar-
written above the relevant terms in the midrashic ies that supplied emendations, sometimes on the
text in manuscript copies of the commentary. basis of manuscript readings, and explained diffi-
The earliest extant copies of Midrash Rabbah on cult passages. In the Ot Emet of Meir Benveniste (Sa-
the whole Pentateuch were produced in 15th-cen- lonica, 1565), errata are listed according to the page,

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 19

© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2021
47 Midrash Śekhel tov 48
column and line numbers of the Venetian edition, Rabba in Cambridge University Library,” Transactions of the
and the author instructed readers to transfer the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 15 (2015) 583–94.
notes into their own copies by hand. One such Benjamin Williams
emended copy, once owned by Aaron ben Solomon
H asson of Salonica, is now in the Bodleian Library See also / Bemidbar Rabbah (BemR); / Bereshit
(N 1.15 Jur). Others sought to emend the printed Rabbah (BerR); / Devarim Rabbah (DevR);
text itself. The Matnot Kehunah of Issachar Berman / Ekhah Rabbah (EkhR); / Ester Rabbah
ben Naphtali ha-Cohen of Szczebrzeszyn was ini- (EstR), Esther Midrashim; / Qohelet Rabbah
tially printed alongside a reprint of the midrashic (QohR); / Rut Rabbah (RutR); / Shemot Rab-
text that had been published at Venice. But accord- bah (ShemR); / Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah (ShirR);
ing to Issachar’s account at the end of the Kraków / Wayiqra Rabbah (WayR)
1587 edition, he reprimanded the printers for reis-
suing a faulty text and instructed them to emend it
so as to reflect the corrections in his commentary. Midrash Śekhel tov
As a convenient collection of midrashim on bib-
/ Menahem ben Solomon
lical books read in the annual synagogue lectionary,
Midrash Rabbah was reprinted numerous times in
the early modern period. Its popularity is demon-
strated by the introduction to the first volume of Midrashic Anthologies
Samuel Yafeh’s commentary (Venice, 1597), in Anthologizing, or the gathering together of selected
which Midrash Rabbah on the Torah is called “the literary pieces in some organized fashion, has been
father of all collections of midrash aggadah.” Fur- characteristic of Jewish literary activity from an-
ther new commentaries were written to guide read- tiquity (see Stern 1997: 2; Stern 2004b: 4). In the
ers, including the Yedei Mosheh of Jacob Moses Helin Middle Ages, the compilatory drive was very strong,
ben Abraham (ca. 1625–ca. 1700), the Mishnat R. Eli- and compilations of various kinds proliferated,
ezer (1707) of Eliezer ben Joseph Yospa Trillinger, among Jews and Christians (cf. Bregman: 67–68).
the textual glosses of David Luria (1798–1855), the The best known and most distinctive collection of
comments of Samuel Strashun of Vilna (1794– midrashim on the HB is Midrash Rabbah on the
1872), and the interpretation of Zeev Wolf Einhorn Pentateuch and Five Scrolls, which took shape over
(completed 1856). These were gathered together the course of centuries, throughout the Middle Ages
with Pseudo-Rashi’s commentary on Genesis Rab- and into the 16th century. This work is dealt with
bah, Issachar Berman’s Matnot Kehunah, and abbre- elsewhere (see “Midrash Rabbah”; Bregman). This
viated versions of Samuel Yafeh’s commentaries in article will focus on midrashic anthologies or collec-
the folio Vilna edition of 1878. tions of an exegetical nature, that follow the biblical
Midrash Rabbah retains its popularity in the text in verse order.
present day. This is demonstrated by the title “The
Midrash” on the covers of the Soncino Press English 1. Yalqutim/Compilations. Perhaps the earliest
translation (1939) and the Kleinman edition of Art- example of this type of compilation is the so-called
Scroll Mesorah Publications (2011–16), a designa- Midrash hø adash al ha-Torah (“A new midrash on the
tion that incorrectly suggests that Midrash Rabbah Torah”), which was apparently composed in the
comprises the entirety of rabbinic Bible exposition. land of Israel, or in a community that followed its
However, it is fundamental to the scholarly study of custom, in the 8th century (see Vachman). Sefer Pitron
midrash to analyze the constituent texts of Midrash Torah, composed in Babylonia in the late 9th-early
Rabba as the products of different periods and geo- 10th century, may have originally covered the entire
graphical locations, and as works with different tex- Pentateuch, but survives in one manuscript (Jerusa-
tual histories. Scholarly editions, from Judah Theo- lem, National Library of Israel, MS Heb. 4º 4767)
dor and Chanoch Albeck’s text of Bereshit (Genesis) that includes material only on Leviticus, Numbers,
Rabbah (1903–29) to the online synoptic texts of the and Deuteronomy. (See Urbach for edition of the
Schechter Institute, treat each midrash separately. text; Beit-Arie for a facsimile edition of the MS.)
Nevertheless, to understand the printing and early- R. Moses ha-Darshan (11th cent.; Narbonne; the
modern reception of Midrash Rabbah, as well as the name may refer to his preaching activity or his in-
approaches of many of the aforementioned com- terest in midrash) apparently assembled an exten-
mentators, it is necessary to appreciate that it was sive compilation of midrashic commentary to Scrip-
often considered to be a unified work from the mid- ture, only parts of which are extant. What survives
16th century onwards. of this work is incorporated in Bereshit rabbati (Al-
beck), Midrash aggadah (Buber) and Bemidbar rabbah
Bibliography: ■ Bregman, M., “Midrash Rabba and the Medi-
eval Collector Mentality,” in The Anthology in Jewish Literature
to the first two parashot of the book of Numbers
(ed. D. Stern; Oxford 2004) 196–208. ■ Theodor, J./C. Al- (Bemidbar and Naso) (see “Bemidbar Rabbah
beck (eds.), Midrash Bereschit Rabba, 3 vols. (Berlin 1903–29). [BemR]”; “Moses ha-Darshan”; Strack/Stemberger:
[Heb.] ■ Williams, B., “The Venetian Edition of Midrash 355–56).

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 19

© Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2021