Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (14 page)

This description of two expansions which grow out of the hybridity of a single sign in the biblical text is an almost perfect description of the midrashic text with which I will be dealing here. However, this type of midrashic ambiguity and its connection with intertextuality goes beyond the duality of a single sign, i.e., word, and reaches into the duality and ungrammmaticality of an entire narrative as a syntagm of many signs. Since I am explicitly dealing here with ambiguity and its intertextual decoding, I will put forth the midrash as a text
representing
acts of interpretation and implicitly commenting on them and not only the acts of interpreting that are represented. Accordingly, I shall here adduce a complete running text of the Mekilta on a whole narrative, in order to give more of the special flavor of a midrashic commentary. (My strategy will be to discuss the issues relevant to the main thrust of my argument here in the body of my text and leave other interpretive issues to the notes.) Specifically, I shall be reading here two examples in which the midrash, in its most typical discursive style, presents a narrative of the Torah in two directly opposed interpretations. I propose to interpret the "scandal" of the fact that the authoritative commentaries on the holiest text of Judaism are presented as a series of controversies in which each of two or more interpretations contradicts and undercuts the other(s). My claim is that the Mekilta is a metacommentary that through its organization provides an implicit theory of reading and of the biblical text. I shall try to show through this reading that the Mekilta is aware of true ambiguities in the biblical narrative, and that while each of the readers it presents work in their readings toward reduction of the ambiguity, the cumulative effect of the midrash as compiled is to focus on the ambiguity and the possibilities for making meaning out of it.

The first passage involved is the story of the bitter waters of Mara [Exod. 15:22–26]:

(22) And Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the desert of Shut, and they went three days in the desert, and they did not find water. (23) And they came to Mara, and they could not drink water from Mara, for it was bitter [
marim
]; therefore its name was called Mara. (24) And the people murmured against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" (25) And he cried out unto the Lord, and He taught [
wayyorehu
] him a tree, and he threw [it] into the water, and the water became sweet; there He gave him a statute and an ordinance, and there He tested [
nissahu
] him. (26) And He said, if hearing you shall hear
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the voice of the Lord, your God, and do that which is straight in His eyes, and listen to His commandments, and keep His laws, all of the disease which I put on Egypt, I will not put on you, because I, the Lord, am your physician.

There are several ambiguities which can, I think, be located quite securely in this discourse itself. The first three are on the level of the lexicon. The adjective
marim
, here translated "bitter," is very similar to a verb which means "rebellious." This usage is, moreover, quite frequent in descriptions of the behavior of the Jews in the wilderness. Syntactically, this adjective can refer either to the (bitter) water or to the (rebellious) people. Another meaning, therefore, echoes ambiguously behind the surface reading. Next, the verb
wayyorehu
is quite surprising in this context. It generally refers in the Bible to verbal instruction and not the kind of pointing out that seems to be required by the context here. That would generally be expressed by
wayyar'ehu
, an entirely different verb. The similarity between the two verbs and the incongruity of the one actually used sets up rich ambiguous possibilities. Finally on the lexical level, the verb form
nissahu
, while unambiguously meaning "He tested him'' in its written form, orally is homonymous with a verb form meaning "He exalted him." On the level of the narrative itself, it is extremely unclear what the nature of Israel's act is here. On the one hand, it seems to be presented as unwarranted rebellion, but on the other, wouldn't such murmuring be expected in a situation where, having been led into a desert, people seem threatened by death of thirst? Next, there is a major gap between the story of the water and its recapitulation in the verse, "There He gave him a statute and an ordinance.'' Where has the giving of law been mentioned or hinted at? In the same vein, the reference to the "diseases of the Egyptians" and God as a healer seems to be a non sequitur. Attempting to join the story and its moral creates various possibilities for interpretation, thus again giving rise to ambiguity.

The first series of comments on our passage deals with the nature of the water signified and with the cause of the failure to find water:

And they went three days in the desert and found no water
. R. Yehoshua says: According to its sound.

R. Yehoshua insists on a "literal" reading of the verse. The text says they did not find water, and that is what it means. This sort of reading is characteristic of R. Yehoshua, as presented in the Mekilta.
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R. Eliezer says, But indeed there was water under the feet of Israel, for the land floats on water, as it is said, "To Him who spreads the earth on the water" [Ps. 136:6], so what is the significance of saying, "and found no water," but it was to exhaust them.
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Others say: The water which Israel took from among the clefts was finished at this moment. What is, then, the significance of "and they did not find water?" Even in their vessels they did not find, as in the matter where it says, "And their mighty ones sent their youths for water; they came to the wells;
they did not find water
; their vessels came back empty" [Jer. 14:3].

This midrash is an echo of another one. Among the miracles which God per

formed at the Red Sea, according to the Mekilta, was "He extracted for them sweet water, from the salt."
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It seems therefore that they were supplied with water at least for the first part of the journey. We must understand, then, that what happened is that they ran out of this water at the end of three days. However, this interpretation renders the language difficult. "They went three days in the desert and did not find water" seems surely to imply that they were walking for the three days without water and searching for it. So why does it say, "they did not find water," instead of saying something like, ''the water ran out"? The Jeremiah verse is then cited to support the use of "they did not find'' with the meaning that their vessels turned up empty.

Up until now, at any rate, both tannaim have read the water as literal water. However, the next reading takes the water metaphorically as a symbol for the words of Torah:

The interpreters of
reshumot
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said, "They did not find water": The words of Torah which are symbolized by "water." And from whence [do we learn] that the words of Torah are symbolized by "water," as it is said, "Ho, anyone who is thirsty, go to water" [Isa. 55:1]. Because they separated themselves from the words of Torah for three days; that is why they rebelled. Therefore, the elders and Prophets decreed that they must read the Torah on the Sabbath, Monday, and Thursday. How so? They read on the Sabbath and skip the day after; they read on Monday and skip Tuesday and Wednesday. They read on Thursday and skip Friday.

In the discussion below, I shall attempt to account for the reading of the
dorshe reshumot
as a response to the several ambiguities of the Torah's text. We find the axiological ambiguity of the biblical story sharply encoded as dialectic in the Mekilta in the next series of interpretive exchanges:

And they came to Mara
. R. Yehoshua say Israel came to three places at that time, for Scripture says, "And they came to Mara, etc." R. El'azar of Modi'in says, they came only to one place.

The basis for R. Yehoshua's view is the threefold repetition of Mara in the verse. R. Yehoshua reflects here the same literary sensibility as the modem commentator, Umberto Cassuto, who remarks on our verse, "The name of Mara occurs three times in the passage, for emphasis, corresponding to the period Of three days, which underlines the length of time during which they found no water."
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Both the ancient and the modem reader sense that the rhythmic, almost ponderous repetition of the word "Mara" in the verse heightens the growing desperation of the threeday search for potable water. R. Yehoshua, to be sure, renders this sensibility in midrashic fashion indirectly by narratizing it, while the modern interpreter remarks it directly. We can focus more precisely, however, on R. Yehoshua's interpretation. As we will see in the

next section of this chapter, this tanna consistently reads the wilderness period as the one of God's honeymoon with the Jewish people. When the Torah's text seems to contradict this view, he interprets this contradiction away, occasionally with nothing short of hermeneutic violence. By reading the verse as saying that they were disappointed three times in their search for water, coming three times to Bitter Springs, R. Yehoshua certainly justifies, at least partially, their cry, "What shall we drink!?" Rabbi El'azar, on the other hand, is represented throughout as emphasizing the faithlessness and constant rebellion of the people in this period. He therefore insists that the complaining about the water here took place after only the relatively minor disappointment of not finding potable water in one place. We find the same bifurcation of their views represented even more explicitly in the next exchange:

And the people complained against Moses, saying, etc
. R. Yehoshua says, Israel should have taken counsel with the greatest among them first, saying "What shall we drink?"; instead, they stood and said angry words against Moses. R. El'azar of Modi'in says, Israel was schooled in angry words against Moses, and not against Moses alone, but against the Almighty. That is why it says, "
saying
what shall we drink?"

The tannaim are addressing a very real exegetical problem here. Why does the text pejoratively call their natural question here a complaint or murmuring? What could be more natural than this question for a people being led three days in a desert only to find bitter waters? R. Yehoshua answers by saying that they should not have been so quick to complain, but should have first taken advice of the greatest of their number (is Moses himself meant?); instead they immediately spoke angrily. This is the import of "stood and," i.e., immediately. R. El'azar says they were schooled, ready and waiting with angry words against Moses, and the question of water was not asked in good faith at all. Moreover, we see from the apparently superfluous word, "saying" ("they complained'' is already a
verbum dicendi
), that they complained against Moses and even blasphemed. R. Yehoshua's explanation deemphasizes the pejorativity of the verb, "they murmured," while R. El'azar's emphasizes it. They are each solving the exegetical problem in accord with their readings.

And he cried out unto the Lord
. Hence, the righteous are not difficult of acceptance (or "complaint").
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There He proved him
. [R. Yehoshua says] There He made him great, as it says, "EwilMerodach raised the head of Yehoiachim" [2 Kings 25:27], and it also says, "raise the heads of the Gershonites" [Num. 4:22]. R. El'azar of Modi'in said to him, But indeed "greatness" is dependent on "shin'' and here it is written with "samekh." What is then the significance of, "And there He proved him"? There God tested Israel.

The disagreement of the rabbis requires exegesis for the English reader. R.

Yehoshua takes "He proved him,"
nissahu
, as if from the root
nsa
, "to raise," and interprets, accordingly, that God at Mara magnified Israel, as in the cases of aggrandizement in the prooftexts. R. El'azar counters that
nsa
, "to raise," is always spelt biblically with the letter ''shin," but here the letter is "samekh," so it must derive from
nsy
, ''to try" or "test." We see that these two views axe again in accord with the general interpretive tendency of these two tannaim in reading our text. R. Yehoshua is presented as stretching for an interpretation which is favorable to Israel, while R. El'azar is emphasizing the negative aspects of these narratives. R. Yehoshua, who certainly was as aware as his colleague of biblical orthography, nevertheless exploits an ambiguity at the oral level of the text,
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in order to maintain his "praise" interpretation.

The Mekilta next focuses its reading on the nature of the tree. By identifying the tree, it seems, a key to the resolution of the meaning of the story can be found.

And the Lord taught him a tree
. R. Yehoshua says it was a willow. R. El'azar of Modi'in says it was an olive, for there is none more bitter than the olive. R. Yehoshua the Bald says it was oleander. R. Shim'on ben Yohai says, He taught him a word from the Torah, for it says, "And He taught him [
yorehu
] "; "And He showed him [
yar'ehu
]" is not [written] here but "He taught him," as it is said "And He taught me and said to me" [Prov. 4:4]. R. Natan says it was a cedar, and some say the root of a fig and the root of a pomegranate. The
dorshe reshumot
said, 'He showed him words of Torah, which are symbolized by a tree, for it says, "It is a tree of life to those who grasp it" [Prov. 3:18].

Among these several identifications of the tree, we can discern two competing schools of interpretation of our text. One school identifies the tree as an actual tree, while the other reads it as a metaphor for Torah. Let us focus first on the "literal" reading. R. Yehoshua, in accordance with his general practice as presented in the Mekilta, argues for the simplest possible interpretation of the verse, reading the tree as the willow which would normally be found aboriginally growing near the water in an oasis. The other tannaim, however, identify the tree more specially. While it is not certain that this is true of all of the readings, it is certainly the case that R. El'azar (explicitly), R. Yehoshua the Bald, and very likely the "some say" are concerned to explicate the tree as one which is bitter to the taste. The oleander, in any case, is not only bitter but deadly poison.