New Light on Midrash Yelammedenu

44 SHOFAR Spring 1995 Vol. 13, No.3 NEW LIGHT ON MIDRASH YEIAMMEDENU by Allan Kensky Allan Kensky is the Associate Dean of the Rabbinical School and Assistant Professor of Professional Skills at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He holds a Ph.D. in Aggadic literature from The Jewish Theological Seminary and has edited a critiCal edition of Midrash Tanhuma haNidpas on the first half of Exodus. One of the significant features of Midrash Tanhuma is the large number ofderasbot, or homiletical discourses, that open with the phrase, "yelammedenu rabbenu," "may our master teach us." For more than a century scholars have debated whether these derasbot originate in a work other than Midrash Tanhuma, perhaps in some yet-to-be-discovered proto- "Yelammedenu" or "Yelammedenu kadmon," or whether they are integral to the Tanhuma text. It is the aim of this paper to show that the yelammedenu derasbot in Midrash Tanhuma are an integral part of the Tanhuma text. While they serve a unique function in the Tanhuma, structurally their role is similar to that of the aggadic proems which introduce sections of the Tanhuma. Though this conclusion on the yelammedenu derasbot would lead us to cast doubt on the existence of a so-called "Yelammedenu kadmon," there is some evidence that'these derasbot originate in some "proto-Tanhuma" which might have served as a source for both the standard Tanhuma and the Tanhuma edition edited by Solomon Buber. Ever since the publication of the first printed edition of Midrash Tanhuma in Constantinople in 1523, entitled Midrasb Tanbuma ba-nikra Yelammedenu, scholarly discussion on the Tanhuma has dealt with the relationship between the two texts. The first direction of discussion was the attempt to determine whether there indeed were two separate works, or whether the same work was cited under two different names. As no complete work surfaced bearing the name Yelammedenu, theories arose New Ligbt on Midrasb Yelammedenu 45 as to the existence of a lost "Yelammedenu kadmon." This "Yelammedenu kadmon" would be the source of the many midrashim in Tanhuma opening with the words "yelammedenu rabbenu" as well as of similar midrashim found in Pesikta Rabbati and Debarim Rabbah. In the view of some scholars, this "Yelammedenu kadmon" might be the source for both Tanhuma ha-Nidpas and the edition of Tanhuma published by Solomon Buber in 1885, each ofwhich drew on the earlier text as a basis for its own composition.1 In this century the discussion on Midrash Yelammedenu has shifted to focus on the genre of proems opening with the words "yelammedenu rabbenu." The term generally introduces a halakhic question. After a brief halakhic response, usually introduced by the formula, "kakb sbanu rabotainu," "so taught our rabbis," a derasbab ensues. The questions about these texts abound: Are these midrashim an integral part of the Tanhuma or are they additions? Is this the original setting of the midrashim or are they taken from another source? What is the "sitz im Leben" of these texts? Are they literary creations or were the questions actually asked at one time? If they were asked, were they serious questions posed by an audience to a darsban or were they formulaic questions asked by a meturgeman, or by a questioner planted in the congregation? Beyond all this, what is the significance of this genre, which combines halakhah and aggadah, and what is its relation to other works that do the same, such as the She'iltot? Antecedents exist for use of the formula "yelammedenu rabbenu." In the Tosefta we find a line of questions beginning with the formula, and there is similarly one question in the Bavli which begins with the term. Conceivably it was these uses which served as prototypes for the later, more fully developed structure of yelammedenu midrash. It was Ginzberg's work on the Yelammedenu which largely set the parameters for the subsequent discussion. Ginzberg identified some 175 yelammedenu sections, with the greatest number found in Tanhuma haNidpas . Ginzberg saw the sections as differing from the body of the Tanhuma in language, style, and in the rabbis quoted. He concluded that 'See Allan David Kensky,Midrash Tanhuma Shmot (Ann Arbor, 1991), pp. 1-6. See also...