Word: midrashic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Only in the Beit Midrash, the holy "house of study," does the guest find the home he was looking for: it seems to be the "one place in the town where you find no suffering." Yet the house of study is, in fact, abstracted from life in the village, perhaps from all life. Its aura is otherworldly-a "light that has been severed from the light of the universe and shines by itself...
...story of Jesus unfolds, midrash, myths, Gospel and all, in a series of stately tableaux, each as literal and conventional as religious calendar art. In the first scene, the three Magi ride toward Bethlehem through a night drenched in blue. Of the miracles performed by Christ, Stevens offers easy-to-picture faith healing rather than such tricky feats as loaves and fishes and water-walking. Then he lets his whole drama turn on the raising of Lazarus from the dead, a much-debated episode that he underscores with the Gloria-in-excess of Handel's Messiah. Handel nonetheless seems...
...only items of strictly Jewish interest in this Mosaic are a smooth and winning translation by Neal Kozodoy of a midrash called "The Death of Moses" and an adaptation of a lecture presented before the Harvard-Radcliffe Forum by Jacob Katz. Professor Katz, now visiting from the Hebrew University, is a world-famous expert on Judaism in the Nineteenth Century; hence it is a fine thing to publish him even though his command of English prose is not all it might be. His article, "Secular Interpretation of Judaism in the Nineteenth Century," will not electrify his professional colleagues, since...
...other non-fiction in this Mosaic is a sort of modern midrash of Jacob, by Arthur Gold. One of the lovely things about this kind of playing with Biblical myths is that, after the game's over, the Bible still remains. In this case, Jacob emerges intact after Mr. Gold's wise use of him to represent the dual spirit of the Jews: "Jacob," the grasping, shrewd Jew folk-hero, and "Israel," the man who wrestles with God. I suppose Gold is right, but I always thought Jacob had more of the former in him--particularly the way his troubles...
Shock & Surprise. The Midrash Theory is related to the technique of Biblical scholarship known as "form criticism," in which Scripture is analyzed in terms of the different forms in which Middle Easterners of 1,900 years ago communicated-far removed from the modern documentary attitude toward history. The form critic tries to determine the reality behind the written word by applying to the text what is known about the patterns of thought and talk current among the people who composed the Bible and the people they composed...