Modern Midrash

This book explores a central phenomenon in the development of modern Jewish literature: the retelling of tradtional Jewish narratives by twentieth-century writers. It shows how and toward what ends Biblical stories, legends, and Hasidic tales have been used in shaping modern Hebrew literature. The author's impressive knowledge and careful analysis of both early and modern Hebrew texts reveal the main literary features of the genre, while making an important contribution to current discussions of the relationship between midrash and literature, the relationship between myth (and other traditional narratives) and modern literature, and the concept of intertextuality. The book also provides many fresh insights on the various issues of modern Jewish existence addressed in these works. Among these are: the revival of the Jewish tradition by reinterpreting it in light of new values, the preservation of Jewish identity entering into Western culture, the changing roles of men and women in Jewish culture, challenges to traditional Jewish views of sexuality, attempts to physically destroy the Jewish people, moral and political issues raised by the establishment of the State of Israel, and the conflict between Jews and Arabs.

This book is a study of rabbinic legal interpretation (midrash) in Judaism’s rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods. It shows how the rise of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism in the modern period is tied to distinct attitudes toward the classical Jewish heritage, and specifically, toward rabbinic midrash halakah.

This two-part book traces the literary and historic study of the story of the 'Wooing of Rebekah' in the Hebrew Bible and its creative interpretations in Rabbinic Midrash. Part 1 treats such issues as the characterization of the narrative agents in the biblical story, the use of repetition as a narrative structuring device, and the question as to the roles of Rebekah and Isaac in this story as well as in the broader Isaac-Rebekah narratives. Part 2 follows several rabbinic interpretations of this story, dealing with, among other topics, the development of the motif of Rebekah's virginity in rabbinic aggadah and halakha as well as the reception of this theme in modern feminist studies of midrash. While treating these topics, this is at the same time a methodological inquiry into the dynamics of midrashic interpretation, treating rabbinic techniques such as 'gap-filling' and 'linkage', and its differences from modern biblical exegesis.

This book is a study of rabbinic legal interpretation (midrash) in Judaism's rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods. It shows how the rise of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism in the modern period is tied to distinct attitudes toward the classical Jewish heritage, and specifically, toward rabbinic midrash halakah. What has gone unnoticed until now is the extent to which the fragmentation of modern Judaism is related to the interpretative foundations of classical Judaism. As this book demonstrates, spokespersons for any form of Judaism that engaged modernity on any level had to explain the basis for their rejection or continued acceptance of the authority of rabbinically developed law. Inevitably and invariably, this need led them to address anew what were long-standing questions regarding the ancient interpretations of biblical law. Were they compelling? Were they reasonable? Were they still relevant? Each form of Judaism fashioned its own response to these challenges, and each argued forcefully against the responses of the other denominations. Jay M. Harris describes the fragmentation of modern Judaism in terms of each denomination's relationship to classical Judaism's system of interpretation in part two of this book.

Brings popular cinema and Jewish religious texts into a meaningful dialogue. Finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience presented by the Jewish Book Council Movies and Midrash uses cinema as a springboard to discuss central Jewish texts and matters of belief. A number of books have drawn on films to explicate Christian theology and belief, but Wendy I. Zierler is the first to do so from a Jewish perspective, exploring what Jewish tradition, text, and theology have to say about the lessons and themes arising from influential and compelling films. The book uses the method of “inverted midrash”: while classical rabbinical midrash begins with exegesis of a verse and then introduces a mashal (parable) as a means of further explication, Zierler turns that process around, beginning with the culturally familiar cinematic parable and then analyzing related Jewish texts. Each chapter connects a secular film to a different central theme in classical Jewish sources or modern Jewish thought. Films covered include The Truman Show (truth), Memento (memory), Crimes and Misdemeanors (sin), Magnolia (confession and redemption), The Descendants (birthright), Forrest Gump (cleverness and simplicity), and The Hunger Games (creation of humanity in God’s image), among others. Wendy I. Zierler is Sigmund Falk Professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion and the author of And Rachel Stole the Idols: The Emergence of Modern Hebrew Women’s Writing.

In Midrash and Theory, David Stern presents an approach to midrashic literature through the prism of contemporary theory. As midrash--the literature of classical Jewish Scriptural interpretation--has become the focus of new interest in contemporary literary circles, it has been invoked as a precursor of post-structuralist theory and criticism. At the same time, the midrashic imagination has undergone a revival in the larger Jewish community and shown itself capable of exercising a powerful influence and hold on a new type of contemporary Jewish writing. Stern examines this resurgence of fascination with ancient Jewish interpretation from the persepctive of the cultural relevance of midrash and its connection to its original historical and literary contexts.