Pĕsikta dĕ-Rab Kahăna: R. Kahana's Compilation of Discourses for Sabbaths and Festal Days (JPS Classic Reissues)

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION

xi INTRODUCTION TO THE New EDITION The destiny of some great ancient books is mysteriously secured in the faith that at some point and in some way someone will come along and open the book and once again bring it to the world. When considering the massacre of the scholars, King Alexander Jannai is reported by the Talmud (Kiddushin 66a) to have asked, “But what will become of the Torah?” He was told, “Behold, it is rolled up and deposited in a corner. Whoever wants to study it, let him go and study it!” The Talmud reports that after the Sages were killed, the world was desolate until Simeon b. Shetah came and restored the Torah to its glory. For reasons that will forever remain a mystery, this seems also to be the fate of the Pesikta de-Rab Kahana. In the introduction to his translation of the Pesikta that follows, Rabbi William G. (Gershon Zev) Braude tells the tale and the journey of this magnificent midrashic work. I summarize it now only to add the latest details to this drama. The Pesikta, as will be explained below, emerged in a time of deep crisis for the Jewish people. It remained well known and studied from the end of the fifth century until it disappeared sometime in the sixteenth century. In 1832 Leopold Zunz, without benefit of manuscript or text, brilliantly postulated its existence and its structure. This magisterial assertion was confirmed in 1868, when Solomon Buber published the Pesikta, based on four manuscripts that he had discovered. A new edition, This essay is indebted to the learning and scholarship of Leopold Zunz, Shlomo Buber, William Braude, Yosef Heinemann, Avigdor Shinan, and Yona Frankel. xii INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION based on yet another manuscript of the work, was published a century later by Bernard Mandelbaum. We do not know who compiled and organized the Pesikta during the fifth century, nor do we know how it came to be forgotten. Were it not for Leopold Zunz’s conjecture , Solomon Buber’s diligent search, and Bernard Mandelbaum’s fastidious scholarship, it might very well have remained unknown. Thanks to these scholars, the Pesikta was reborn. And now, to this list we can add the name of William Braude. Were it not for him, this Pesikta and other collections of midrashim (the Pesikta Rabbati, the Midrash Tehillim, and the Tanna de-Vei Eliyyahu) would have remained rolled up in a corner. It was he who took them out of their corner and brought them to the English reader. The World of Midrash The Pesikta is a work of a specific type of rabbinic literature, midrash. We can divide the rabbinic era in which midrash was composed into two periods. The first begins ca. 30 B.C.E. and concludes with the compilation of the Mishna in ca. 200 C.E. The Rabbis of this period are known as tana’im (sing. tana). The term “tana” means “repeater” and refers to the Rabbis’ mastery of the Oral Law. The second period begins ca. 200 C.E. and concludes with the compilation of the Gemara as commentary upon the Mishna, about the year 500 C.E. The Rabbis of this period are known as amora’im (sing. amora), or lecturers. The period of midrashic literature begins with the tannaitic commentaries for Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These works are characterized by two main features, among others. First, each of them is an exegetical midrash, which means they follow in their structure and content the text of the Torah, section for section, applying the midrashic craft verse for verse, phrase for phrase, and at INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW EDITION xiii times word for word. Second, the tannaitic midrashim make no distinction between legal and narrative literature in the Torah, explaining them both as encountered in the text. Hence both midreshei aggadah (narrative midrashim) and midreshei halakhah (legal midrashim ) are found side by side in the same tannaitic work. This is not the case in the later amoraic midrashim. The Pesikta is a product of the great age of midreshei aggadah, narrative midrashim. These are midrashim that explain the narrative portions of the biblical text or that pursue aggadic meanings of legal texts. Following the redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud early in the 5th century, three amoraic midrashim were composed: Genesis Rabba, Leviticus Rabba, and the Pesikta de-Rab Kahana. These three share many...