Midrash and Torah Technology

These photos show a fragment from the Dead Sea scrolls photographed with two very different processes. The photo on the left was taken with standard equipment. Many words and letters were obscured (and even thought to be lost) to the effects of age.

The photo on the right was taken with a process called multispectral imagining technology developed by NASA. It uses ultraviolet and infrared light to increase image resolution. Previously obscured or apparently invisible text appears. Now, every letter of every word on the fragment could be understood.  

My point is this: It is possible for a new technology to reveal what was always there, but obscured. 

The song of Songs is a song of love and longing between God and Israel. This is the consistent interpretation by Hazal—the sages of early Rabbinic Judaism—and the entire tradition of the Jewish people. In midrash Song of Songs Rabbah (at 1.1.18), Rav Nachman, a fourth century C.E. sage, compared the Torah 

to a large palace with many doors. And whoever would enter within would wander from the path leading back to the door and get lost. An ingenious man came along and took a coil of string and hung it along the path leading back to the door. Then everyone would enter and exit by means of the string. Thus, until Shlomo arose, no man was able to understand the words of Torah, but when Shlomo arose everyone began to comprehend Torah. (Songs Rabbah 1.1.8)

According to Rav Nachman, whatever words of Torah were transmitted—narratives, mitzvot, and halakhic applications—something so profound was missing that no man was able to understand them. And then, after Shlomo arose, everyone began to comprehend. Like multispectral imagining technology, this was a new Torah technology. Shlomo saw what had previously been obscure. He then spoke it in public (as Rabbi Yudan tells us) and enabled everyone to begin to comprehend the words of Torah. They didn't become Torah scholars, but they began to get it—every word, phrase, sentence, portion, and the whole of Torah has to be seen in the light of the unique love relationship between God and Israel. Otherwise, no matter how the narratives are discussed and the mitzvot are analyzed, explained, and applied, the words of Torah will remain obscure.

Rav Nachman's words are as sweet as can be—the Torah can be grasped by everyone. And yet they taste bitter to some. Later commentators had to remove that bitterness in order to make Rav Nachman's words palatable. An example of approach is found in Ettelson’s 1876 commentary on Songs Rabbah. He writes,

It is possible to say that before Shlomo there was no man able to understand anything on the basis of his own thinking, except whoever received from his rabbis, one [directly] from the other. Thus, after Shlomo came and taught a way, everyone was able to understand words of Torah a little” (Ettelsohn 1876, 18). 

But Rav Nachman's midrash (and the five similar ones found in the same passage) say nothing about rabbis. And the sense of "began to comprehend" isn't restrictive (as if their understanding went no farther) but implies that their understanding could increase from that point on. 

Song of Songs Rabbah is not against study or halakhah. Other portions commend those who are dedicated to learning and the place of Torah scholars in the community of Jews. But learning must take place within the all-encompassing narrative and lived experience of the love relationship between God and Israel. This is the essence of Torah that gives meaning to its wisdom and instruction. 

Likewise, the besorah (gospel) can only be rightly understood as an overflow of that love to the nations. When that is left out, the identity and mission of Yeshua is obscured. It becomes impossible to understand how the one who "was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" (Matt. 15:24) was also "sent" to be "the savior of the world" (1 Jn. 4:14). 


(Cross posted at Midrash, etc.)