Midrash ha-Gadol

Midrash HaGadol or The Great Midrash (Hebrew: מדרש הגדול) is a work of aggaddic midrash, expanding on the narratives of the Pentateuch, which was written by Rabbi David Adani of Yemen (14th century).

Its contents were compiled from the two Talmuds and earlier midrashic literature of Yemenite provenance. In addition, it borrows quotations from the Targums, Maimonides, and Kabbalistic writings, and in this aspect is unique among the various midrashic collections. This important work, the largest of the midrashic collections, came to popular attention in the late 19th century through the efforts of Jacob Saphir, Solomon Schecter and David Zvi Hoffmann. In addition to containing midrashic material that is not found elsewhere, such as part of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon, Midrash HaGadol contains what are considered to be more correct versions of previously known Talmudic and Midrashic passages.

Discovery and publication

The existence of the ''Midrash HaGadol'' was first brought to the attention of Jewish scholarship by Jacob Sapir, who in his ''Even Sapir'' (1866) reports seeing a manuscript of the work in the possession of the Chief Rabbi of Yemen. His remarks about the "discovery" are reproduced in , where he describes a work on the entire Pentateuch containing "twice as much as our Midrash Rabbah". (While this collection was new to European Jewry, it was probably well known to the Jews of Yemen.) The first manuscript was brought from Yemen to Jerusalem and then to Berlin in 1878 by Mr Shapira, and this Midrash subsequently became the subject of much scholarly attention. There are currently approximately two hundred manuscripts of this work residing in various public and private Hebraica collections, according to the catalog of the ''Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts''.

The ''Midrash HaGadol'' on Book of Genesis, Genesis was first published by Solomon Schecter in 1902. A large portion of ''Midrash HaGadol'' on Book of Exodus, Exodus was then published by David Zvi Hoffmann in 1913. ''Midrash HaGadol'' on Book of Numbers was published by S. Fisch in 1940 in a more accessible style than the previous efforts, which were principally arranged for a scholarly audience. More recent editions listed by are those on Genesis and Exodus by M. Margulies (1967), on Leviticus by E.N. Rabinowitz (1932) and A. Steinsalz (1975), on Numbers by E.N. Rabinowitz (1973), and on Deuteronomy by S. Fish (1972). The Mossad HaRav Kook Institute in Jerusalem has also published a five-volume edition.

Authorship

According to , the work dates to the late 14th century. A discussion of its authorship is provided in , wherein he reviews the evidence in favor of the three then-prevailing opinions regarding authorship of the Midrash HaGadol, variously that it is the work of Rambam, his son Abraham ben Rambam, the author according to Maharitz (Yihya Salah), Maharitz (an opinion disputed in later generations), or David bar Amram al-Adeni. After discounting Rambam as a possible author, and reviewing some compelling factors in favor of the other two possible authors, offers the conciliatory hypothesis that the work was composed in the Arabic language by Abraham ben Rambam, and translated into Hebrew by David al-Adeni. While Fish offers possible explanations for how the work, if indeed authored by Abraham ben Rambam in Egypt, came first to be "lost" and then to be rediscovered in Yemen, find the attribution to Abraham ben Rambam "only extremely weakly attested," and report that modern scholars almost uniformly attribute the work in its entirety to David bar Amram al-Adeni. S. Fish concedes this as well in his Encyclopedia Judaica article on the topic.

Sources

The ''Midrash HaGadol'' contains material from Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon, Sifre Zutta, Mekilta le-Sefer Devarim, Mekhilta on Deuteronomy, Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Sifre, and other unknown midrashic sources. In addition, the midrash makes use of the work of Rambam and Isaac Alfasi, Alfasi, as well as many geonic writings, but the sources are never cited, a unique characteristic of this midrash. All these various sources are fused in such a way that the product is a new literary creation in which the original ingredients can frequently not be unambiguously discriminated.

A "Midrash HaGadol that was brought from Aden" is cited by Joseph Shalit Riqueti in ''Sefer Chochmat HaMishkan'' (1676), but it is not known whether this is the same as this Midrash HaGadol.

References

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* {{Citation , surname1=Strack , given1=H.L. , surname2=Stemberger , given2=G., title=Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash , publisher=T&T Clark, place=Edinburgh , year=1991 , isbn = 978-0-8006-2524-5.

External links

Midrash HaGadol (on the Book of Exodus)
Berlin 1914

Midrash HaGadol (on the Book of Numbers)
Manchester 1940

Aggadic Midrashim
Hebrew-language literature
Jewish belief and doctrine
Jewish folklore
Jewish medieval literature
Jewish Yemeni history
Jews and Judaism in Yemen
Medieval Jewish history
Jewish philosophical and ethical texts
Medieval literature
Medieval manuscripts
Midrashim
Mizrahi Jewish culture
Torah
Yemenite Jews