“Mind the gap!” Its ‘pshat’ or literal meaning, famous from the London Underground and elsewhere, is “don’t fall into the space between train and platform.” The ‘drash’ or creative interpretation is: ‘drash away. Mind the gap. Make midrash--that which fills the gap between what is offered and what is ideal.
Drash – As imperative, it means “creatively interpret this;” also as noun, a unique explanation, a drash. But the root, lidrosh, is “to search.” To search for, and ferret out, hidden meaning. And from this we get midrash: that brilliant, ever-relevant genre of Jewish literature which minds the gaps in the biblical text, and fills them in.
This year, we’ll bring midrash —classic and modern—into our Shabbat morning discussions. Today, we consider the importance of midrash – historically, for our people; and for us, now, facing a new year, and the challenge and wonder of teshuvah (introspection, repentance, self-betterment).
With midrash, the key is searching, not necessarily finding. We search out layers of significance: some have lain latent, awaiting our exploration; some exist just in the generation of the midrash, which we read into the text. With midrash we are on a searching journey -- and as with much of life (perhaps this goes for tshuvah, too), the travel counts more than the destination.
Midrash takes the skeleton of received text, keeping the bones precisely in place but adding sinews and flesh, even facial features and body language. It fills in the white spaces with what the midrashist wants, is compelled, to say. And that is the message here: how we fill in the gaps, counts.
After the last Presidential election, George Lakoff became something of a household name in many circles, especially in this town. Lakoff, a linguist, argued that the Republicans won because they’d framed the issues, early and often, to lead voters to see the world in ways that would lead them to lean ‘Red’. Democrats, he said, must enter the framing game, too, and do it better, to win.
As voters, as humans—our brains need to make sense of experience. So we crave a narrative – a frame -- to help us filter what comes in, and make of it something understandable. Framing is exactly what midrash does. The classical midrashists were consummate spin artists, shaping the received text into their ideal of the story of our people, through the art of narrative.
Their impact was enormous. Stories we know well – how Abraham smashed his father’s idols back in Iraq, how Nachshon jumped into the Red Sea before it split, how Miriam’s Well followed the Israelites through the desert – are all midrash. They’re not in the Bible, though they are how we now read the Bible. And talk about the influence of midrash – Avraham did not smash Terach’s idols in Genesis; yet right in the Holy Quran (Sura 21), Ibrahim did!
Some of classical midrash’s impact within Judaism was reworking the harsher parts of Biblical Judaism, and softening them. In Midrash Halacha, or legal midrash, Torah gets closely interpreted by particular rules, to clarify how we best follow the mitzvot.
A famous example is what the rabbis pull with the ben sorer umoreh, ‘stubborn and rebellious son’, whom Deuteronomy (21) actually says should be killed by his parents. Midrash, closely rereading it, makes the most implausible arguments – for instance, the text “he doesn’t listen to our voice” limits this case to boys whose mother’s and father’s voices sound the same! – to the point where “there never has been and never will be” a death-penalty-bound “stubborn and rebellious son.”
Here and elsewhere, the midrashists turn biblical din, judgment, into rabbinic rachamim, compassion. Good thing for us! And a good reminder in this season of forgiveness: as with our ancient forbears, we too can privilege loving compassion over stern judgment.
Beyond Midrash Halacha, we inherit Midrash Aggadah – narrative about narrative, minding and filling in the gaps in the Bible’s tersely-told stories: Why did Sarah have it out for Hagar? How did the plagues go, exactly? What did Moses really think about not crossing the Jordan? Certain (homiletical) interpretative rules always apply, but the midrashists were free to go on flights of fancy – and they did.
Midrash is the most creative genre of Jewish literature – often audaciously so, even calling God to task. The body of classical midrash we study – mostly between one and two millennia old – is a cornucopia of creativity. (So is modern midrash -- which we too can create.).
Creativity…today: Hayom Harat Olam, this day, Rosh Hashanah, the world was created. Specifically, says midrash, Tishrei One was the sixth day, when humans – created in God’s creative image -- appeared. And with that inherent human creativity, came the midrashic impulse.
The midrashic masters (ba’alei hamidrash) reframed traditional texts, making up stories around stories, to make sense -- to reduce the dissonance between what they’d received, and how their guts, minds, contemporary sense, even ‘divine instinct’ thought it should be.
We of course do just that, with the story of our lives. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t – just like the ba’alei hamidrash: some of their efforts seem as fresh and vital in Twenty-Oh-Seven as in Five-Oh-Seven; some just fall flat in retrospect.
An example of the latter from today’s Torah reading: compelled to vindicate Sarah and Avraham, the rabbis unleash a vendetta on Hagar and Ishmael. Interpreting the verse, “Sarah saw the Son of Hagar…mtzachek, making sport;” Bereshit Rabbah (53:11), with the weakest of ‘prooftexts,’ says: “this teaches that Sarah saw Ishmael ravish maidens, seduce married women and dishonor them…Sarah saw Ishmael build idolatrous altars, catch locusts, and sacrifice them….” Or, m’tzachek means bloodshed – Ishmael tried to kill Isaac.
To our ears, this retelling disgraces the rabbis more than Ishmael. Midrash is, at root, a value-neutral tool. It has been, and can be, used in the service of all that is holy. But it can just as easily be turned around. So with our own retellings and reframings: our ‘midrashim’ can diminish us, or they can empower us, and help us grow. We choose.
This, I’ve recently learned, is not just a Rosh Hashanah / tshuvah thing – it’s “narrative psychology,” the idea that how you tell your story, affects how you live your life -- and vice versa. To change your life for the better (i.e. do tshuvah), start by examining the stories you tell yourself.
We can each do this. And, maybe, our people could use a little narrative therapy, too. What stories do we tell of ourselves as Jews? We’re stiff-necked, ornery; perennial victims; shlemiels and balabustas, powerless wanderers – AND, we’re God’s chosen, outshining all others, each a Freud or Einstein, Streisand or Brandeis or Ben-Gurion. Which is it? How about a third choice – one that empowers us to modestly live up to great potential? That’s my vote…
National narrative therapy goes way back. Consider, from tomorrow’s Akedah:
On reaching Mount Moriah, Abe tells two unnamed lads, “stay here with the donkey; the boy [Isaac] and I will go up, worship, and return to you.” The Genesis text then pans up the mountain. But one medieval midrash minds a huge gap -- these two lads left behind – and (in Pirkei d’Rebbe Eliezer 31) identifies them as Yishmael the eldest, and Eliezer the servant:
Ishmael says, “hmm… wood, flint, knife; no animal – father will sacrifice Isaac! Finally, I’ll inherit; I am first-born.” Eliezer responds, “Abe banished you, with your mother! Who should inherit but his ever-faithful servant.” And to this, the Holy Spirit called out: “Neither this one nor this one will inherit.”
This is a root-for-the-underdog midrash. But there’s more: This is not about ancient Israel. The tenth century midrashist faced constant war between the followers of Jesus and Muhammad. The midrash acknowledges that Isaac, Jewry, seems doomed in the crossfire between Ishmael (Islam) and Eliezer (Christendom). They’re fighting to wear our falling mantle of Am Segulah, God’s special people.
When written, this midrash was a political parable, with a twist at the end that offered hope, and promised survival and restoration. It was also pastoral, telling a depressed, oppressed Jewry: “yes it looks bad, but don’t give up – think positively – you’ll make it!”
That uniquely American prophet – Norman Vincent Peale! – understood this “power of positive thinking,” of the right inner narrative. The stories we tell ourselves matter. If our self-narrative, at any level, is “I can’t, I won’t, I’m not worthy” -- our actions too will fall short. But if we reframe – if our internal midrash points us toward “I can, I should, I will” – results follow.
Positive thinking is well and good -- really. But spinning our stories this way creates a most human temptation: to ignore the negative altogether, to obfuscate or alter the facts to fit the preferred narrative – to bear false witness.
So on Rosh Hashanah, we ask: what in our personal midrashim, our inner narratives, is healthy? -- And what is pure spin, exaggeration, even falsehood? In this self-aware season, let’s question how honestly we ‘mind the gap’. Can we achieve the balancing act, understanding and telling our story so it’s positive and empowering – and accurate and ethical?
It’s a challenge to us as natural midrash-makers: what to do with shortcomings or mistakes counter to how we want to view ourselves. Do we ignore anything that doesn’t fit our self-protective frame? Do we combine facts, subjective experience, and speculation (itself a kind of midrash), into a story that shifts blame? Or can our stories allow us to embrace ourselves, and think positively, while also acknowledging and working on imperfections? That’s our High Holy Day challenge – walking that tightrope.
Likewise: how to fill the gap between our hopes or expectations of others, and their mistakes and shortcomings? Do we ignore the problems to protect an image (as with the battered woman who feels a need to say, “he didn’t mean it”)? Or do we upend our previous sense of that person altogether, to make sense of the mistake?
As with ourselves, so with others: can we hold a story with room for both good and bad, with accountability and forgiveness? I think so. I hope so. But it takes self-reflection, and self-protection: Consider carefully the stories you tell yourself, the master narratives you’ve accepted even beyond question. Question them now – that’s what these Days are for.
Again, midrash is a way of bridging what is offered, with what is ideal. And none of us—sorry folks—none is ideal. We all have work to do, and by understanding our own Midrash, that work becomes clearer. Assumptions are laid bare. And we can ensure that going forward, our tales will be positive, and accurate – empowering, and ethical.
The High Holy Days and the hard work of tshuvah are ultimately about possibility, and change. Neither static greatness nor static lousiness make for a good master narrative. Leave room, in the gap-minding midrash of our lives, for imperfection -- for optimism – for growth.
Reb Simcha Bunim’s suggestion, some two centuries ago, bears repeating: keep two slips of paper, one in each pocket, to pull out as needed to help us maintain balance -- one reading “the world was created for my sake;” the other, “I am but dust and ashes.” The way you mind that gap – that’s the story of your life.
Shana tova.