There and Back Again; A Story of P'shat vs D'rash

There and Back Again; A Story of P'shat vs D'rash

Chanan Heisler

            When I was a little, the lines that separated פשט and דרש were blurred; they were both torah, so I considered them one and the same. In elementary school, I knew the facts of the bible: עשו bit  יעקב's neck when they embraced each other after years apart. אברהם smashed his father's idols in order to prove a point. He was consequently cast into a burning oven, but with the help of God, he emerged unscathed. יצחק became blind because of an angel's teardrop that inconveniently fell into his eyes during the עקידה. These stories weren't made up by rabbis later on in history, they were crucial facts in the stories of our forefathers. Facts that made these stories more interesting and more memorable.

            In high school, I started to learn about the dichotomy between what was actually written in the torah, and what was, in my mind, forced into the texts afterwards by later rabbis using the torah to promote their own agendas. The cynical Chanan had no room in his heart or head for דרש. I can remember my frustration when learning Gemara, how after every אוקימתא, I would cynically disregard what each commentator of the previous generation was trying to do. When the Gemara would bring a random פסוק, taken out of its intended context to learn a rule, I might have snidely remarked to my חברותה how that wasn't the real meaning of the פסוק. When a rabbi in the talmud would create an אוקימתא, specifying a given case to a single context, in order to bolster and affirm their understanding of the Gemara, I would think to myself how they clearly just missed the point. In my head, these rabbis weren't trying to learn torah, they were trying to shape the words of the torah to advocate their own opinions. Cynical Chanan cared first and foremost for intellectual honesty, and cared little for those who seemed to be inventing an understanding that wasn't previously there.

            The point where I started to open up to the concept of דרש was in a senior year english class. We started off the year reading Textual Power by Robert Scholes. We discussed the meaning of reading literature and what a reader is supposed to do. In class, we spoke of two flaws the normal reader has. One is that they try to find the author's intentions or the original meanings behind the book. A text has a life of it's own, and its meaning goes well beyond the original or intended significance. The second is that one shouldn't be a passive reader, waiting for the message to come forth on its own. There is no 'right way' of reading literature. Instead, one must analyze literature and search for meaning even one that seemingly isn't actually there. As long as one could use quotes and details to support a claim about a message or hidden meaning, it was fair game.

            It took me until this past year to begin to conceptualize the bigger picture of the reality that is פשט vs דרש. דרש, in its essence, is also a form of literary analysis. In english class, we use different lenses to understand a given text. Freudian, feminist, and historical analytical lenses all bring a different focus to the table when understanding Shakespeare. פשט and דרש are tools to understand the various religious texts we analyze. פשט focuses on what is really going on, what is simple or basic understanding. דרש, on the other hand, focuses on something much greater. A דרש oriented reading of biblical stories will care more for lessons and morals of a story, than on the actual meaning of a text. Even though the study of הלכה is more dynamic and complicated than a reading of a single text, talmudic study also has the d'rash style reading in it as well. A דרש oriented talmudist isn't necessarily looking to formalize law, rather to use the law and apply it in a way to better understand the situation. Someone who brings a random פסוק out of its context to prove a law is using their sources to prove a point or refocus a conversation. Even the אוקימתא that, once upon a time, frustrated me to no end, serves a bigger goal than intellectual honesty. Yes, it is important to understand the פשט, but the value in judaism and in jewish learning is in the דרש. Otherwise, we might as well be poking out each other's eyes and killing every rebellious teenager.

            As I continue my learning at Maale Gilboa, I have returned to the world of דרש once again. Maybe I didn't originally know the difference between פשט and דרש, and I would take them both as torah and apply both. Now, as I am able to understand a more nuanced view of Jewish texts, I can distinguish the differences between פשט and דרש, and afterward understand what there is to gain from both viewpoints.