ymarkov | On p'shat and d'rash

The peshat of Talmudic literature, erroneously translated as “literal sense,” actually means a possible interpretation of the text, which emerges from “what is commonly accepted.” The peshat is possible thanks to logical and psychological factors, as well as to historical processes, which synchronically link the linguistic community, thus allowing the establishment of the obvious sense in a written text. For Maimonides the peshat is the linking sense of the Torá (=de-oraita) and as a consequence something that counts with the unanimous consent of the community of Israel. A synonymous expression of peshat prior to the Common Era is dabar she-ha-Tsadoqim modim bo, “something on which the Tsadoqites concur with;” in other words, that which is accepted by all, even the sectarians (Tsadoqites). In this precise sense, the peshat is a universal phenomenon: the sensus communis of all the linguistic community. This is essentially oral; it can never become a written text.

Rabbinic tradition maintains that together with the written law or the text of the Torá, the people of Israel received an oral law – the psychological-linguistic apparatus that allows the interpretation of the written text. Spanish-speaking Sephardim translate oral law as ley mental [mental law]. This ley mental constitutes the mental apparatus of the linguistic community, through which a text of the written law is processed (allowing certain syntactic connections and rejecting others). In this manner one establishes a semiologic relationship between the written text – or that which is interpreted – and the mental law, or the interpreter system. This relationship cannot become inverted. The interpreting system cannot be interpreted by any other system. Otherwise, mental law would be an interpreted object and not an interpreting system. [...]

The intellectual space of the teachers of the Mishná and the Talmud moves within the ambit of the verisimilar. The Talmud does not recognize any specific metaphysical system. One will not find in the Talmud formal and analytical proofs, proceeding as in scholastics, of syllogisms accompanied by axioms, premises and conclusions. Its proofs are not “demonstrative,” structured from formal deductions and inductions. The object of Talmudic dialectics are equiprobable and inequiprobable alternatives, inferences and analog constructs, undetermined and statistical knowledge, variables and quantitative differences. In the Talmudic lexicon the word “rational” (muskal) does not appear. Its dialectic is expository: it proposes the “reasonable” (sebara), not the “rational” (muskal). The divergent and contradictory opinions that the ‘amora’im study and propose are not classified into “true” (emet) and “false” (sheqer). One of the fundamental doctrines of rabbinic dialectic was established by the ‘Amora Samuel (circa 2nd to the end of the 3rd c.) Referring to the numerous controversies between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, he postulates the following doctrine: “These [of the school of Shammai] and those [of the school of Hillel] [express] the words of the Living God, but the halakha [legal norm] is according to the school of Hillel." From here two fundamental points depart. First, the dialectic must postulate an absolute horizontality among the disputing parties: each one expresses “the words of the Living God.” Second (and as a consequence of the former), controversies are not to be resolved metaphysically, according to a certain supreme hierarchical proof, but through the process of halakha (legal norm), where the judicial authorities adopt a position instead of the other. The “other” is not necessarily false, but specific reasons and situations leads to take one decision over the other. This is why rabbinic literature also includes the dissident or rejected minority opinion. [...] It is important to remember that the noun halakha (legal norm) comes from the verb halakh, “to walk:” the magistrates, teachers, and society, choose to conduct themselves through one path and walk according to one of the opinions instead of the other.

[...] Rabbinic rhetorical epistemology emerges from hermeneutics (derasha or “exposition”) of the Biblical text. Differently from Christian hermeneutics, the purpose of the derasha is not to discover the original sense of the Biblical text, but to generate a new meaning independent from the author’s intention. In specific terms, its purpose is to amplify and modify the semantic sense of the word contained in the peshat or sensus communis of the text, utilizing hermeneutic norms that compare, link, and differentiate. Eloquence is the art of presenting to the public this new meaning. In this manner, the derasha penetrates the mind of the community; eventually it will become part of its sensus communis and it will be the peshat or “obvious sense” of the sacred text. [...] Through the derasha the people’s sensus communis is transformed, thus allowing it to capture the Biblical text in the context of their new situation. In concrete terms, the derasha replaces government institutions and bureaucracies. All dialectic technique, and as a result rhetorical, presupposes that a sensus communis allows to persuade in the name of “reason,” “equity,” “equality,” “liberty,” “religion,” or any of the basic values that unite the community and promote social action.

Without the sensus communis accompanied by rhetoric, one could impose but not convince. Thus, the derasha continues developing through all the rabbinic period (at the end of the 7th c.), until to relatively modern times. Without derasha, Israel could not have survived two thousand years of exile.

R. Dr. Jose Faur, "Rhetoric and Hermeneutics", 2001