  in judaism, the midrash (;"midrash". random house webster's unabridged dictionary. ; plural midrashim) is the body of exegesis of torah texts along with homiletic stories as taught by chazal (rabbinical jewish sages of the post-temple era) that provide an intrinsic analysis to passages in the tanakh. midrash is a method of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal, or moral teachings. it fills in gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.living with contradiction, haaretz the purpose of midrash was to resolve problems in the interpretation of difficult passages of the text of the hebrew bible, using rabbinic principles of hermeneutics and philology to align them with the religious and ethical values of religious teachers. == etymology == gesenius ascribes the etymology of midrash to the qal of the common hebrew verb darash (×Ö¸Ö¼×¨Ö·×©×) "to seek, study, inquire".brownâdriverâbriggs: midrash the word "midrash" occurs twice in the hebrew bible: 2 chronicles 13:22 "in the midrash of the prophet iddo", and 24:27 "in the midrash of the book of the kings". == methodology == according to the pardes approaches to exegesis, interpretation of biblical texts in judaism is realized through peshat (literal or plain meaning, lit. "plain" or "simple"), remez (deep meaning, lit. "hints"), derash (comparative meaning, from hebrew darashâ"to inquire" or "to seek") and sod (hidden meaning or philosophy, lit. "secret" or "mystery"). the midrash concentrates somewhat on remez but mostly on derash (some thinkers divide pardes into pshat, remez, din (law) and sod. in this understanding, midrash aggada deals with remez and midrash halakha deals with din). many different exegetical methods are employed to derive deeper meaning from a text. this is not limited to the traditional thirteen textual tools attributed to the tanna rabbi ishmael, which are used in the interpretation of halakha (jewish law). presence of apparently superfluous words or letters, chronology of events, parallel narrative
Hebrew_words_and_phrases Midrashim