Read Online Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash by Daniel Boyarin - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Boyarin
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fastened. . . . This phenomenon can be explained in terms of the hermeneutic interpretation of the classical texts of each school of thought. Every period of history approaches its heritage anew. By rearranging and regrading the basic elements of this legacy, it also gives it a slightly altered meaning. In such a restructuralization of a particular philosophical theory the quotation plays a double role: it both continues and breaches the tradition , that is, uncovers angles of inquiry which were unknown or forgotten. Hermeneutics is a corroboration and fulfillment of the vitality of the theory involved; hence quotation operates in this context equivocally. At one level it encapsulates accepted philosophical propositions, but, above all, it performs in a new whole designed to modify this acceptance. 9
According to Morawski, then, even a philosophical hermeneutic operates equivocally, at one and the same time reproducing and radically altering the previous texts. This same equivocation, this doublevoicedness, is characteristic of midrash as well. Precisely by being composed largely of quotations it both affirms and transforms the biblical text. In a sense, it is exemplary of both species of discourse, for as we have seen, the same double movement of "continuing and breaching" a tradition is found in both poetic texts and philosophical hermeneutics. The quotations of previous poetry in the poetic text cannot but maintain the tradition while openly claiming to breach it, while the quotations in the hermeneutic text cannot but breach the tradition, while openly claiming to maintain it. What is interesting, then, about midrash in this regard is that it openly takes a position between (actually never really "between," but sometimes one, some
times the other, usually both) "freely" using the preexisting linguistic material and quoting it with reference to its "original" context. This intersection in effect undermines the distinction that we habitually make between literary creation and hermeneutic work, by showing that all literary creation is hermeneutic and all hermeneutic is creation. Our study of the Mekilta will bear out this view that explicit intertextuality carries with it both "disruptive" and "reconstructive'' features; I will argue that with reference to midrash, at least, this double movement of disruption and regeneration is precisely its raison d'être . I will illustrate this point with a text from our midrash:
And they went out into the desert of Shur [Exod. 15:2]. This is the desert of Kub. They have told of the desert of Kub that it is eight hundred by eight hundred parasangs—all of it full of snakes and scorpions, as it is said, "Who has led us in the great and terrible desert—snake, venomous serpent, and scorpion" [Deut. 8:15]. And it says, "Burden of the beasts of the DrySouth, of the land of trial and tribulation, lioness and lion, . . . ef'eh " [Isa. 30:6]. Ef'eh is the viper. They have told that the viper sees the shadow of a bird flying in the air; he immediately conjoins [to it], and it falls down limb by limb. Even so, "they did not say, 'Where is the Lord who has brought us up from Egypt, who has led us in the
Land of drought and pits, land of desolation and the deathshadow?'" [Jer. 2:6]. What is deathshadow? A place of shadow that death is therewith. [Lauterbach, II, pp. 87–88]
This brilliant rhetorical piece combines scriptural and folkloristic materials to increase the vividness of the point that Israel was blindly faithful to God in this time. The passage begins by identifying the wilderness mentioned only here with a wellknown desert, so well known, in fact, that there is a folk tradition of its immense size. Not only is it immense, it is also terrible, completely filled with venomous snakes and scorpions. Moreover, in the verse from Isaiah, we are told that one of the reptiles is called ef'eh , identified as the viper. Another folk tradition is cited indicating how terrible this viper
According to Morawski, then, even a philosophical hermeneutic operates equivocally, at one and the same time reproducing and radically altering the previous texts. This same equivocation, this doublevoicedness, is characteristic of midrash as well. Precisely by being composed largely of quotations it both affirms and transforms the biblical text. In a sense, it is exemplary of both species of discourse, for as we have seen, the same double movement of "continuing and breaching" a tradition is found in both poetic texts and philosophical hermeneutics. The quotations of previous poetry in the poetic text cannot but maintain the tradition while openly claiming to breach it, while the quotations in the hermeneutic text cannot but breach the tradition, while openly claiming to maintain it. What is interesting, then, about midrash in this regard is that it openly takes a position between (actually never really "between," but sometimes one, some
times the other, usually both) "freely" using the preexisting linguistic material and quoting it with reference to its "original" context. This intersection in effect undermines the distinction that we habitually make between literary creation and hermeneutic work, by showing that all literary creation is hermeneutic and all hermeneutic is creation. Our study of the Mekilta will bear out this view that explicit intertextuality carries with it both "disruptive" and "reconstructive'' features; I will argue that with reference to midrash, at least, this double movement of disruption and regeneration is precisely its raison d'être . I will illustrate this point with a text from our midrash:
And they went out into the desert of Shur [Exod. 15:2]. This is the desert of Kub. They have told of the desert of Kub that it is eight hundred by eight hundred parasangs—all of it full of snakes and scorpions, as it is said, "Who has led us in the great and terrible desert—snake, venomous serpent, and scorpion" [Deut. 8:15]. And it says, "Burden of the beasts of the DrySouth, of the land of trial and tribulation, lioness and lion, . . . ef'eh " [Isa. 30:6]. Ef'eh is the viper. They have told that the viper sees the shadow of a bird flying in the air; he immediately conjoins [to it], and it falls down limb by limb. Even so, "they did not say, 'Where is the Lord who has brought us up from Egypt, who has led us in the
Land of drought and pits, land of desolation and the deathshadow?'" [Jer. 2:6]. What is deathshadow? A place of shadow that death is therewith. [Lauterbach, II, pp. 87–88]
This brilliant rhetorical piece combines scriptural and folkloristic materials to increase the vividness of the point that Israel was blindly faithful to God in this time. The passage begins by identifying the wilderness mentioned only here with a wellknown desert, so well known, in fact, that there is a folk tradition of its immense size. Not only is it immense, it is also terrible, completely filled with venomous snakes and scorpions. Moreover, in the verse from Isaiah, we are told that one of the reptiles is called ef'eh , identified as the viper. Another folk tradition is cited indicating how terrible this viper
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