Midterms and Midrash

As we slog through midterms, canceling club meetings left and right, it’s hard to remember why this whole college thing is better than what we want to do, whether we want to debate politics or to learn Judaism. At these times especially, I remind myself that this whole college thing is Judaism. Virgil’s Aeneid seems to me similar to the Bible; it always has, as EconoPundit kindly points out. But the point here is larger than reading Aeneas as a Moses-character.

Most traditions allow for some creative reading of the Bible, and Jews especially trade midrashim. For those of us whose families do not claim that the rabbinic interpretations are the only possible readings of the Bible, who think we can learn from Jewish tradition and from scholarly biblical criticism and from non-Jewish interpretations, it is hard to understand where we draw the line. And I am not sure we have to draw a line. Certainly, at some point we say that a book, if still worth reading, is less worth reading than others, but why shouldn’t we study Rousseau along with our Rashi? And if we don’t hold Rashi as binding (as most of us don’t, even if we should), then why shouldn’t we think both of them equally, and deeply, important? So remember: that test is Torah.

By Michael Pomeranz  |  November 3, 2007; 10:10 PM ET  | Category:  Lox et Veritas
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