Midrash ha-Gadol [“The Great Midrash”: Compilation of several early Midrashim] - Exodus only

ADANI, DAVID BEN AMRAM.

Yemen

Fifteenth Century

Yemenite square calligraphic Hebrew letters, black ink on coarse paper. Some poems at beginnings of Torah portions provided with nikud. Adani begins each pericope with a poem in rhymed verse. These poems plead in a most moving tone for the imminent salvation of Israel

The Midrash ha-Gadol is atributed to a scholar of thirteenth-century Yemen, R. David Adani.This compilation is invaluable to scholars today because Adani made use of ancient midrashim now lost to us, first and foremost of which is the Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Starting with David Tzvi Hoffman of Berlin, scholars have been able to piece together much of the lost Mechilta de-Rashb”i from the citations embedded in Midrash ha-Gadol. However, Midrash ha-Gadol cannot be made use of uncritically. Unfortunately, the noted Israeli scholar R. Menachem Kasher unwittingly fell into this trap in his book Ha-Ramba’m ve-ha-Mechilta de-Rashb”i (1943). Kasher found sources for several decisions of Maimonides’ code in the Midrash ha-Gadol. The reality, in some instances at least, was that Adani had simply incorporated phrases from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah in his compilation. The text of our manuscript is ranked by Prof. Joseph Tobi, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, as being superior to the printed edition, which is based on later and less accurate manuscripts. M.B. Lerner called for a new critical edition of Midrash ha-Gadol, in Pe’amim, Vol. X, pp. 109-18. See also EJ, Vol. XI, cols. 1515-6