Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (11 page)

This passage is followed by a text that has caused a great deal of difficulty for the commentators on the Mekilta.

(2b) And so we have found that their journey returned back on itself three stations, as it is said, "And they traveled from PiHahirot and went through the sea, and they traveled from Mara and came to Elim, and they traveled from Elim and camped on the Red Sea" [Num. 33:8–10].

The text indicates that the children of Israel, after having lek the Red Sea and traveled for a time, returned to the place whence they came. The internal content of this comment is relatively simple. A passage from Numbers in which

Israel's journeys are rehearsed is cited. In that passage it is stated that after crossing the sea, the people journeyed to Mara and thence to Elim and from Elim back to the shores of the sea, which is taken to mean, back to the same point from which they embarked. They have thus returned three stations: Elim to Marah to the sea.

The exegetical status of the comment is thus in itself clear; the question is, how does it function in this context? Several commentators, observing that returning to Egypt is a symbol of unfaithful and ungrateful desire on the part of the people—one that reappears several times in the desert wanderings—argue that this passage is cited as tacit evidence
against
R. Eliezer's reading.
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Or alternatively, some claim that it is out of place and belongs later on, where the Jews are presented as having rebelled and wished to return to Egypt.
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However, both of these interpretations ignore the structure of the paradigmatic midrash here. Since the following statement (2c, below) is clearly one in praise of the Jews for returning to honor and bury Aaron, and it is introduced by the formula, "similarly"—a topos of similarity in paradigmatic midrash—we must understand this one to be also praise and not blame. The philological solution of moving the text will not work either, because then again the paradigm would be broken. It is clear, therefore, that the text must stand as it is, and that the return motif is here cited as praise and not blame.
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In order to understand this text we must recognize that it contains a double allusion to an earlier part of the Mekilta, that which precedes the account of the Red Sea crossing. We are informed there that God Himself, on one occasion, commanded the Israelites to retrace their steps: "Speak to the people of Israel, that they shall return and camp before PiHahirot" [Exod. 14:2], and in Exod. 14:4 we are told, "
And so they did
." Now, the Mekilta, commenting on this latter verse, remarks: "
And so they did
: They said, Like it or not, we must follow BenAmram [Moses]." In other words: on this previous occasion, the people did not want to retrace their steps, but they did so, because Moses told them to. Now, since in our case we can prove (via the text in Numbers) that the Israelites returned again, we have evidence that this return, by analogy to the previous one, was also out of obedience to BenAmram. Hence, "And Moses removed them"!

The other allusion is even more explicit, in fact it is a quotation:

Rabbi says, Sufficient is the trust that they trusted in Me that for its sake I shall split the Sea for them, as it is said, "that they shall return and camp." . . . Others say, sufficient is the trust that they trusted in Me that for its sake I will split the sea for them, for they did not say to Moses, we have no victuals for the way, but they trusted and went after

Moses. Of them it is said explicitly in the tradition "Go and call in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, I have remembered for you the righteousness of your youth, your going after Me in the desert" [Jer. 2:2].

In short, the second opinion is the explanation of the merit of Israel in (2a) above, and it is associated textually with the other case of merit, namely the retracing of steps, which, as we have seen, was also out of faithful obedience to Moses! Now it is clear why a statement about the Israelites returning could be used as a support for their merit in trusting Moses blindly.

It is important that the role of the verse from Jeremiah be recognized. It has both metonymic and metaphoric aspects. On the one hand, it is a comment on the nature of the righteousness of the people in the desert, and as such it can legitimately be applied (legitimately even in modem hermeneutic theory) in several contexts as a comment or justification of a comment on the motivations of the narrative of this period. On the other hand, in both passages its use also generates the actual narrative, for it is precisely the "going after Me in the desert" which is being narrated. Moreover, even the point about the people not wondering where their food will come from is generated by this verse, as it concludes, "in a land in which nothing grows."

A similar case in which Israel gathered merit by returning is then cited in (2c), in which the contradictions between passages in Numbers and Deuteronomy are resolved, and in the resolution a moral lesson is learned—a classic midrashic technique:

(2c) Similarly, we have found that they returned to honor Aaron and to bury him, eight stations, as it is said, "And the Israelites
traveled from the wells of the Ya'aqanites to Mosera
, and there Aaron died" [Deut. 10:6]. Now, did Aaron die in Mosera? Indeed he died on Mt. Hor! as it is said, "And Aaron the priest ascended Mt. Hor by the word of the Lord and died there" [Num. 33:38]. What then is the significance of, "And there Aaron died" but to signify that they returned eight stations to honor Aaron and to bury him, as it is said, "
And they traveled from Moserot and camped at BneYa'aqan
, and they traveled from BneYa'aqan and camped at HorHaggidgad. And they traveled from Hor Haggidgad and camped at Yotvata, and they traveled from Yotvata and camped at Evrona, and they traveled from Evrona and camped at EtzionGever and camped in the wilderness of Tzin which is Qadesh, and they traveled from Qadesh and camped at Mt. Hor at the edge of Edom" [Num. 33:31–37].

In Deuteronomy it is stated that Moses died at Mosera, while in Numbers it is stated that he died at quite a different place, seven journeys (=eight stations) later. Any interpreter who is not willing to assume that we simply have two contradictory sources for Aaron's death
must
in some fashion address the contradiction between the two verses. The midrash does so by exploiting the difference in verb forms used in the two passages, such that one can only be read as "died," while the other may be read as a stative/present, something like "lies dead." The problem is resolved. In one place, Aaron passed away, but he lies dead—is buried—in another. So much for exegesis—the hermeneutic

element comes in with the interpretation that the Israelites returned eight stations in honor of Aaron, to bury him in a suitable grave. The moral lesson need not be drawn explicitly, and this is the beauty of the midrash. While powerful ideological messages are being drawn from this text, this cannot be called homily. It is not exploitation of the text; it
is
exploitation of the gaps in the text, which are there, as it were, precisely to be exploited. Note that IL Eliezer's reading is supported in another way, for in Numbers it is stated that BneYa'aqan is the station immediately following Mosera, while in Deuteronomy the Wells of the Ya'aqanites, apparently the same place, was the station immediately preceding Mosera; thus a reverse journey is indeed indicated in the very text of the Torah itself. This is not a political reading of the text, but it is a reading which is alive always to the ethical/ideological implications of the text and of its reading.

The import of this citation is, then, that the Israelites here also were willing to return in order to perform an act of obedience and honor to their leader. We now see the exact paradigmatic structure of the midrashic text. The Torah provides (the midrash claims) several examples in which the Israelites were prepared to follow Moses back into the dangers of the desert, the Red Sea, or Egypt. This is then the highest proof of their great trust and faith in God and Moses in this period, that immediately on Moses's order they said "Lead me and I will follow after You,"
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and this is why it says, "Moses removed them." R. Eliezer has produced a reading of the text, filling in the perceived gap in its narrative. This gapfilling, while not controlled by the text itself, neither is wholly unconstrained, but the product of strong intertextual motivations and constraints.

In (3) we begin a diametrically opposed filling of the textual gap:

1. R. Eliezer [!] says, By the word of the Almighty they journeyed, for we have found in one place, in two and in three, that they journeyed not but by the word of the Almighty. (3a) What is the significance then of saying, "And Moses removed Israel," but to signify that Moses led them with a stick against their wills, for once they saw the corpses of the men who had been working them at hard labor—all of them corpses strewn on the seashore—they said, It appears that noone is left in Egypt; "
   let us make us a chief [nittena rosh] and return to Egypt
   " [Num. 14:4], and let us make us an idol, and it will descend at our head, and we will return to Egypt. Now it could be
   [yakol]
   that they said this but didn't do it. But behold it says, "And they refused to hear and did not remember Your wonders which You did for them, and they stiffened their necks and
   made them a chief [wayyittenu rosh]
   to return to their work . . . and made them a golden calf and said, This is your god" [Neh. 9:17–18]. [Lauterbach, II, pp. 84–85]
   

   First, the argument against the literal interpretation is repeated. The gap will again be filled by additional narrative material. However, the alternative expla
   

   nation given in (3a) is directly opposite to the one that was offered in (2a) above, and in the name of the same tanna, R. Eliezer!
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   It was not the case that the Jews followed Moses blindly, faithfully, and trustfully into the waste, but quite the opposite; they were unwilling to follow him at all. They wanted to replace him with another leader, who would return them to Egypt. Moses had literally to lead them with a stick, and this is why the verse says, "And Moses removed them." This characterization of the moral state of Israel is supported by the cited verse of Nehemiah. The very story is woven out of our verse and the verse in Nehemiah, even more rigorously than it was above in the case of Jeremiah. Our darshan has constructed a narrative to explain why Moses had to lead them with a stick, but he has not woven his text out of whole cloth; his very warp and woof are quotations. He begins by constructing a narrative context, a
   new
   narrative context for the verse, "let us make us a chief and return to Egypt." This was not said, or not only said, when the spies returned with tales of the giants of Canaan, but also upon exiting from the sea. Note: the verse is not cited as a
   prooftext
   for their desire to return but incorporated as an
   intertext
   , made
   part
   of the story itself. The justification for reading this verse in a new narrative context is its association with the verse in Nehemiah via the identical phraseology, "Let us make us a chief." Since the verse in Nehemiah implies that this was said
   before
   the incident of the golden calf, the midrashist is justified in assuming another such incident, in which the people wished to choose a
   

   new leader in order to return to Egypt. The very repetition of this delaration of intention to appoint a new leader and return becomes then a strong verification of the negative reading of the moral state of Israel at this time. The whole story of what they wished to do here, i.e., after the parting of the sea, is thus constructed by reading the verse in Nehemiah in our context, where it can plausibly be placed.
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   The story continues after the verse; not only did the people wish to appoint a new chief to preside over the return, but they also wished a new god, again known from the verse in Nehemiah. Then the whole narrative is validated, again, not in the form of a logical argument, a prooftext, but by the incorporation into the narrative of the midrashic intertext, namely the verse from Nehemiah. This text is made the continuation of our story, i.e., first they planned all these things and then carried them out; "They did not remember Your wonders"—the splitting of the sea; "They made them a chief''—an echo of the verse from Numbers; and they made them a golden calf—quoted in our midrash as ''and let us make an idol." The narrative of the midrash is thus not arbitrary but a subtle reweaving of cotexts into a new text.
   

   Now that the text has been glossed, its structure can be interpreted. In particular the function of the cited verses becomes clear. We have seen that the verse from Jeremiah provides two elements to the discourse. On the one hand,
   

   it contains an explicit valuation of the people in their desert wanderings. In this sense, it is paradigmatic or metaphorical; it belongs to the substitution set of verses evaluating the nature of the period. On the other hand, the narrative element in the verse itself is expanded here into a specific story, by being placed into a specific context in the Torah's text; in this sense the verse is used metonymically, as part of a narrative sequence. The narrative of the verse, its record of a movement through the desert, motivates its use here to explain a gapped text involving movement from place to place. The verse from Nehemiah functions identically in the second
   

   version of the gapfilling. It provides an explicit evaluation of the people's state at the time, one that is opposite in thrust to the one indicated by Jeremiah. It also is used in generating the narrative sequence by providing verbs which signify moving from one place to another.
   

   Once the correct interpretation of R. Eliezer's statement in its first version has been established,
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   we can see that it is directly related to the return motif in the second version. The relation is again a paradigmatic one, but of a different sort, for here the paradigm is created by contrast and not by similarity. In both cases, the Israelites say "Let us return," but in the first, the return is a sign of faith; in the second a sign of rebellion. In the first, it is correlated with the verse of return in Exod. 14:4; in the second with that of Num. 14:4. In the first, it is supported by Jeremiah; in the second by Nehemiah. In other words, we have a balanced, rhetorical structure in which two opposing arguments are made in more or less similar form. In this sense, the two texts themselves form a paradigm in the way that we have been using the term; that is, in this case, as a contrast set of two texts marked positive and negative for a given semantic value, namely, "return." In rhetorical terms, we have here antisagoge.
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   But this is not sophistry, a study in rhetoric: R. Eliezer's antisagoge is a dialectic with himself, which only lays bare the antinomy within the ''tradition" itself and the Torah. The equivocation in his interpretation is an echo of the dual voices of the Torah and of its interpretive traditions within the canon.
   

   If we outline the structure of this complex text, we will see that there are here several paradigms and paradigms within paradigms:
   

   1. Israelites in wilderness: praise (+)
      

      1. Story of willing following of Moses
         

      2. Jeremiah verse
         

      3. Support paradigm
         

         1. Returning to sea: faith (+)
            

            1. verses of forward journey
               

            2. verses of reverse journey
               

         2. Returning to bury Aaron
            

            1. Aaron buried in Mosera
               

            2. Aaron buried in Hot Hahar