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Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

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Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael

Name	Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל
Dates	3rd century
Place	Eretz Yisrael
Characteristics
Sources
Impacted on

Background¹

Names

• Common names – מכילתא, מכילתא דרבי ישמעאל²
• Other names – מכילתא ואלה שמות, מכילתא דארץ ישראל, ספרי³

Date

Place

MekRY was redacted in Eretz Yisrael.

Language

Mishnaic Hebrew

Text

• Manuscripts⁴ – There are two complete manuscripts, Oxford 151 and Munich 117. Vatican 299 contains approximately half of MekRY, and approximately eighty pages of MekRY from the Cairo Geniza are extant. The Geniza fragments provide access to an Eastern textual transmission of the midrash that is generally superior to the Ashkenazic tradition represented in the Oxford and Munich mansucripts.⁵
• Printings – Two critical editions were published in the 1930s without reference to each other. H.S. Horovitz’s edition was published posthumously (completed by I.A. Rabin) in Frankfurt, 1931, while J.Z. Lauterbach published a three-volume edition in Philadelphia, 1934-1935.
  The Horovitz version lists variants from manuscripts, earlier printings, and various works that quote MekRY, such as Yalkut Shimoni and Midrash Chakhamim. The edition also contains a concise critical commentary.
  The Lauterbauch edition used a few more manuscript resources than Horovitz did⁶ (although is less thorough in noting variant readings) and includes an English translation and useful indices.
  Scholars have noted that these editions fail to take into account important aspects of the history of the textual traditions of the midrash. Such issues include the direct dependence of the Venice 1545 edition on the Constantinople 1515(?) edition,⁷ the relative superiority of the Oxford manuscript (see above, Manuscripts),⁸ and the fact that the Ashkenazic manuscripts seem to have a common source.⁹ Furthermore, since the publication of these editions a significant quantity of additional manuscript versions (partial or fragmentary) has been discovered.
• Textual layers – Scholarship has shown that the halakhic and aggadic portions of MekRY are based on different sources that were combined by redactors.¹⁰  The aggadic portions have much shared material in common with Mekhilta DeRashbi, implying that both midrashim worked off of a common midrashic source for aggadah.

Content

Genre

midrash halakhah

Structure

•  As the main focus of MekRY is halakhic, it starts only in chapter 12 of Shemot while skipping the earlier narrative sections, although it also contains much aggadic material.¹¹ MekRY is divided into nine major sections, called masekhtot, as follows (with verses from Shemot covered by each masekhta in parentheses):
  Pascha (12:1-13:16)
  Vayehi Beshalach (13:17-14:31)
  Shirata (15:1-21)
  Vayasa (15:22-17:7)
  Amalek (17:8-18:27)
  Bachodesh (or Debiri) (19:1-20:26)
  Nezikin (21:1-22:23)
  Kaspa (22:24-29)
  Shabta (31:12-17; 35:1-3)
  Each masekhta is divided into parashiyyot, which are subdivided into halakhot numbered by the Hebrew letters.
  
  

Characteristics

•  In its halakhic sections, MekRY employs the derash methods typical of the school of R. Yishmael, which include a greater reliance on middot (rules of interpretation), and a tendency to avoid expounding ‘superfluous’ words and particles, and duplicate verbs, nouns, verses, and passages.¹²

Sources

Significant Influences

• –

Occasional Usage

• –

Possible Relationship

• –

Impact

Other Midrashim

• – 

Medieval Exegetes

• – 

Supercommentaries

• – 

¹ This section incorporates information from M. Kahana, "The Halakhic Midrashim" in The Literature of the Sages Part II, ed. Safrai et al. (Assen, 2006): 3-105 (hereafter: Kahana), and G. Stemberger and H. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (1996, hereafter: Stemberger and Strack).

² This page will use the abbreviation MekRY.
The Aramaic word Mekhilta (מכילתא) is equivalent to the Hebrew “מידה”, which can mean “measure” and “rule”, as in the י"ג מידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן. Mekhilta has also come to mean a tractate containing exegesis by such rules (similar to the way the word canon (a body of ecclesiastical law) comes from the Greek kanṓn which originally meant a measuring rod, and then a rule). See Stemberger and Strack: 252.
In Gaonic literature, and Rambam’s introduction to Mishneh Torah, the term Mekhilta can refer to all halakhic midrash on Shemot through Devarim.
The earliest references to this midrash as Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael are found in writings of R. Shmuel b. Chofni Gaon and R. Nissim Gaon. The name probably stemmed from the fact that R. Yishmael is the first sage appearing in the text as interpreting a verse from Shemot. The idea that this midrash was produced by the school of R. Yishmael is an innovation of modern scholarship and not found earlier.

³ See Kahana:68, note 298.

⁴ See the literature quoted in Kahana:70, notes 310-313.

⁵ See also below, Printings

⁶ See Kahana: 69.

⁷ See E. Melamed, Tarbiz 6 (1935): 498-509.

⁸ As noted by S. Lieberman, see Kahana: 70, note 309.

⁹ As theorized by L. Finkelstein, see Kahana ibid., note 308.

¹⁰ The halakhic sections are thought to be the product of the academy of R. Yishmael. See Introduction to the Midreshei Halakhah.

¹¹ Approximately 45% is aggadic. See Kahana: 6, note 11.

¹² See Introduction to the Midreshei Halakhah for a more extensive discussion of this school in contrast to that of R. Akiva.