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.

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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

A Dutch perspective on the US Elections

Found on the Web (where else?):

"We in Holland cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?"