[Avodah] Only One Interpretation, The Right One - (Was Did RSRH write LH)

[T613K at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/21/2008, llevine at stevens.edu writes:

At 06:51 PM 12/20/2008, Rn T. Katz  wrote:


>>>>>
I find it  hard to take that medrash seriously because there is simply no   
textual support for the notion that Dinah was sent away or that she had  a  
daughter or that "Asnas bas Potiphera" was really "Asnas the  daughter of 
Dinah  and  Shechem" or that Eishes Potiphar adopted a  daughter.   It's all  
based on  what?  And explains  what? [--TK]

>>I think the comments of RSRH on Bereshis  40:5 can be used to back up your 
contention. ...


An intelligent person can discern the precise  explanation of a dream,
without being able to guarantee the dream’s  fulfillment.... 
RSRH does not  use midrashim to explain pesukim all that often. To me it 
seems that the above  comments explain why.<< 

 

YL 


>>>>>
I was not claiming that every medrash has to  "come from within the pesukim" 
but a medrash usually answers some obvious  question in the pasuk or adds 
information based on something that is at least  implied or suggested in the 
pasuk.  To take a very obvious example, why  does the medrash say that Kayin and 
Hevel were born with twins?  The pasuk  doesn't say it, but the fact that they 
had children certainly suggests that they  had wives and the obvious textual 
question is, where did those wives come  from? 

When the medrash answers an obvious question or fills an obvious hole, then  
Rashi often cites it and Hirsch often does, too, sometimes explicitly 
following  Rashi.
 


--Toby Katz
=============
"If you don't  read the newspaper you are uninformed; 
if you do read the newspaper you are  misinformed."
--Mark Twain

Read *Jewish World Review* at _http://jewishworldreview.com/_ 
(http://jewishworldreview.com/) 




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