The term midrash refers, loosely, to the style of exegesis practiced by the rabbis of the 1st through 8th centuries CE, a genre that often involves straying far outside the plain or literal meaning of the text. In The Origins of Midrash, Paul Mandel presents a novel theory of how midrash developed and suggests that interpreting the Bible was not the priority of the early talmudic sages. Yitz Landes writes in his review:

Mandel argues [that], for much of antiquity, including during the early rabbinic period, the Semitic root d-r-sh [whence midrash] referred to teaching—textual or otherwise. Mandel thus overturns the [scholarly] consensus that early uses of this root refer to textual interpretation, and that only later was the root’s meaning expanded to encompass teaching more generally.

Mandel’s argument is a philological one, and it starts over a millennium before the rabbis first appeared on the historical stage. . . . In their occurrences in pre-rabbinic texts from the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere, [d-r-sh and related Semitic roots] refer not to activities of textual interpretation but simply to “the disclosure and teaching of the Jewish law.” Similarly, in early rabbinic texts, these words “do not convey a particular mode of textual interpretation and, indeed, are not limited to textual interpretation at all, but rather to public instruction, usually in the realm of laws and custom.” The meaning of d-r-sh changed toward . . . the turn of the 2nd century CE.

While praising the book, Landes suggests that “the distinction between explication of the Torah text and ‘a detailed discussion of the laws based on that text’ is not so clear [as Mandel assumes], particularly given that the discussion of the laws may still have included a recital of the pertinent passages from Scripture.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.