Vayeishev I: The Place of Peshat

אלה תולדות יעקב - ישכילו ויבינו אוהבי שכל מה שלימדונו רבותינו כי אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, אף כי עיקרה של תורה באת ללמדנו ולהודיענו ברמיזת הפשט ההגדות וההלכות והדינין על ידי אריכות הלשון ועל ידי שלשים ושתים מידות של ר' אליעזר בנו של ר' יוסי הגלילי ועל ידי שלש עשרה מידות של ר' ישמעאל. והראשונים מתוך חסידותם נתעסקו לנטות אחרי הדרשות שהן עיקר, ומתוך כך לא הורגלו בעומק פשוטו של מקרא, ולפי שאמרו חכמים אל תרבו בניכם בהגיון, וגם אמרו העוסק במקרא מדה ואינה מדה העוסק בתלמוד אין לך מדה גדולה מזו, ומתוך כך לא הורגלו כל כך בפשוטן של מקראות, וכדאמ' במסכת שבת הוינא בר תמני סרי שנין וגרסינ' כולה תלמודא ולא הוה ידענא דאין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו. וגם רבנו שלמה אבי אמי מאיר עיני גולה שפירש תורה נביאים וכתובים נתן לב לפרש פשוטו של מקרא, ואף אני שמואל ב"ר מאיר חתנו זצ"ל נתווכחתי עמו ולפניו והודה לי שאילו היה לו פנאי היה צריך לעשות פרושים אחרים לפי הפשטות המתחדשים בכל יום. ועתה יראו המשכילים מה שפירשו הראשונים:

Here, on Bereishit 37:2, we have Rashbam’s first major substantive comment about what his method of peshat is all about (with the exception of a very brief comment at the very beginning of his commentary). He makes a number of important points worthy of explication and emphasis:

1) The core purpose of the Torah is to provide us with rich narratives and detailed normative guidance so that we can lead religious lives. The Torah indeed conveys this substance to us through the use of hints and indirect associations and classical rabbinic exegesis—which is very different from what Rashbam understands to be peshat—is designed to draw this out of the biblical text.

2) Despite the above, אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, which is here assumed to mean that an exoteric reading of a verse—the peshat—is never fully displaced just because a more esoteric interpretation is offered. This other, admittedly non-central, aspect of the Torah remains a part of its essential character.

3) Ancient commentators were primarily interested in 1) over 2). Rashbam, however, describes himself as part of an intellectually electric environment in which peshat is experiencing an intense revival and thereby, in his view, enriching appreciation of the Torah. His language of הפשטות המתחדשים בכל יום conveys a feeling of scholarly discovery and excitement that plays out on a daily basis (see his comment on Bereishit 36:12 for another example and on 37:13 for an example of the collegial collaboration involved), and his description of the arguments he would have with his grandfather, Rashi, show how the new interpretations of this ancient text could spur tension and controversy.

All of these dynamics are worthy of more consideration, and I hope to return to them throughout the course of the commentary. For now, I will limit myself to one observation: Rashbam reveals to us here the delicate dance required when advancing novel exegesis while simultaneously maintaining established norms and conventions. On the one hand, he emphasizes here—almost to the point of the lady protesting too much—that all of his peshat explanations are not the עיקר, the essence, of Torah. The purpose of Torah is real-time, detailed, normative guidance that cannot be fully contained in the literary boundaries of peshat. On the other hand, his contempt for erroneous readings of Tanakh is palpable, as words like משכילים are trotted out to describe the enlightened pashtanim even as more traditional readers—including his grandfather!—are derided with terms like הבל and accusations of ignorance and unsophistication. Which is it? Is he truly a radical who simply wants to cover his tracks with occasional humble language, or is he truly a pious traditionalist who sometimes gets carried away in the intellectual moment?

I think the most honest answer to those questions is that these sorts of high-voltage intellectual pursuits—such as proposing alternative readings of the canonical word of God that is the supposed basis for all Jewish practice—inherently invite some degree of ambivalence and inconsistency. Rashbam is not alone in this regard. R. Yosef Bekhor Shor, a slightly more junior contemporary northern French exegete, displays similar vacillations. Bekhor Shor viciously attack any allegorization of the verses that produce the commandment to wear tefillin (another Rashbam interpretation we will eventually get to!) even as he advances a radical reading on the supposed ban on cooking a kid in its mother’s milk that would, if halakhically applied, completely eviscerate traditional Jewish practices surrounding mixing meat and dairy. Rashbam is best seen here, in my view, as exploring uncharted intellectual territory as he and others actually consider what it would mean to take the Biblical text seriously in its own terms. Given that he and his colleagues in this enterprise are situated as religious, practicing Jews, that intellectual exercise sometimes has limits—albeit idiosyncratic, not always consistent, internally necessary ones. Rashbam is indeed both a traditionalist and an intellectual risk taker; that is precisely what makes him so interesting.