Preaching in the Jewish Tradition

Preaching in terms of interpreting the Bible was unknown in Judaism until after the Babylonian Exile.

The Hebrew prophets were preachers—but they were primarily exhorters, interpreters of the will of God; not preachers of the Bible (for the Bible as we know it was not yet the authoritative word of God), but as men impelled by their vision of God as a God of justice, holiness, love, and the one and only God in a polytheistic world. The Hebrew prophets preached when the Spirit moved them, often during festive occasions, because that is when the people would come to the population centers, either to offer their sacrifices in Jerusalem or to visit the great market places on market days, but there were no fixed times for their appearance and no fixed places.

Preaching, in the sense that we understand the word (interpreting the will of God through explanation and interpretation of Biblical texts) came into Judaism with Ezra and Nehemiah about the fifth century B. C. The Torah (now accepted as the Word of God) was read to the public on the Sabbath and other important occasions—read and interpreted so that the people might know what God expected of them, (Neh. 8:1–9; 9:3).

The interpretation was a translation of the Hebrew text into Aramaic, which had become the vernacular of the people, accompanied with some explanation. Thus, preaching began in Judah about 400 B.C. Josephus speaks of the custom of translating and interpreting Scripture as a very ancient custom, and Philo refers to it as an important element of public worship. Certainly by the first pre-Christian century, preaching in the synagogue was an integral part of the Sabbath worship service.

THE DARSHAN

The two heads of the Sanhedrin—Shemiah and Abtalion—of the first century B.C. were known as “darshanim,” i.e., interpreters of the Bible.

After the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, expounding the Torah and using it not merely to teach the meaning of the text but to edify and to inspire, to encourage the people with hope in difficult times, became a regular part of the worship. In the early Talmudic times, the expounder used to explain the Torah through an interpreter—a meturgamon, or an amora. The interpreter was not regarded with esteem by scholars.

On the contrary, the Midrash says, “It is better to hear ‘darshanim’ than the ‘metergamanim,’ ” who sometimes embellished the explanation, thus distorting the meaning of the preacher.

In Talmudic times the sermon had a definite form. It consisted usually of three parts (1) the introduction (pesichta); (2) the exposition of the text (drush); and (3) the conclusion.

The technique of a Talmudic sermon adhered to the following pattern: The preacher began by quoting a verse from the Bible other than the Pentateuch, explaining it and gradually leading to his Bible text. This connection of the introductory verse with the text was known as “haruz” (stringing together), a term taken from the custom of stringing pearls together by piercing them. Thus when preaching from the text, “And Abraham was old” (Gen. 24:1), the preacher began by quoting the verse “The hoary head is a crown of glory; it shall be found in the way of righteousness” (Prov. 16:31), and continued by illustrating with the following incident:

“Rabbi Meir went to Minla where he noticed that all the inhabitants were black-haired. He said to them, ‘Tell me, are you all descended from the House of Eli? as it is written “and all the increase of thy house shall die young men.” They answered him ‘Rabbi, pray for us,’ whereupon he said, ‘Go and practice righteousness, and you will become worthy of old age.’

“ ‘Whence did he derive this reason for his statement? From the words “a hoary head is a crown of glory,” and where is old age found?—in the way of righteousness. From whom dost thou learn this? From Abraham of whom it is written: “He will command his children to observe the ways of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice”; therefore he was found worthy to reach old age, as it is written, “And Abraham was old, well stricken in age” ’ ” (Genesis Rabbo—49:1).

The preacher, having come to his text in this way, then began to explain it and to embellish it with various illustrations—parables, stories, fables, etc. The final portion of the homily consisted of a brief repetition of the ideas drawn from the text, and the preacher closed with a prayer of praise, usually the Kaddish. In addition to the darshan, in later Talmudic times, the maggid, a preacher in the more modern sense, developed.

THE MAGGID

The maggid was often an itinerant preacher skilled in telling stories, using parables to illustrate an ethical or spiritual message. He was much more popular than the darshan, being more entertaining and less difficult to understand for the layman. It is said that people used to leave the lecture room of Rabbi Hiyya (a great darshan) and flocked to Rabbi Abahu, a maggid. To appease the sensitive Rabbi Hiyya, Rabbi Abahu said. “We are like two merchants, one selling diamonds, the other selling trinkets. Which will the people buy more readily?” (Sotah 40 a).

Some of the great rabbis, like Meir (second century A.D.) combined both—the erudition of the scholarly darshan and the story-telling talents of the maggid. He was called the Jewish Aesop, because he was skilled in using stories of animals and parables to teach his moral lessons. But the darshanim often regarded the maggidim as distorting and twisting Biblical verses (the Word of God) to suit their momentary fancy and their roving imaginations. One rabbinic scholar, a darshan, estimated the work of the maggidim as no more value than books on magic.

In the Geonic period (from the eighth century on into the middle ages), the darshan would preach only before the great holy days and festivals, and his discourse was usually a halachic legal interpretation of the holy day and its observance.

The maggid’s function was to preach to the people usually on a Sabbath afternoon when the people gathered for the Micha and Maariv services. His sermon was usually based on the Sidra (portion of the Torah), for the week. His mission was to inspire the people to righteous living, either by pointing up the virtues of Paradise which was the reward of the righteous, or by instilling in them the fear of hell, the punishment of the wicked. During the centuries of persecution the maggid would tend to give encouragement to the people by dwelling on the messianic hopes.

A very famous maggid was Isaac Abravanel, who arose after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. His homiletic commentary on the Bible became a source book for later maggidim. His method was to explain a Biblical chapter by asking a number of rhetorical questions, which he would then answer in a lucid argumentation, embellished with illustrative material.

One of the most famous of the maggidim was Jacob Kranz of Dubno, Poland, who died in 1804. He was known as the Dubner Maggid—the preacher from Dubno. His fame rested not only on erudition, but on his unique power to use the story and parable to illustrate his message. A great nineteenth century preacher was Moses Isaac ben Noah Darshal (the Kelmer Maggid), 1828–1900. His coming to a community was looked forward to as a great event, like the revivalist preachers of our own time.

Maggidim followed no special pattern. Each expressed his preaching in terms of his temperament and abilities. Thus there were the “Terror Maggidim,” who preached on the terrors of hell for those who failed to live the commandments of God; the “Messianic (or hopeful) Maggidim”; the “Philosophical Maggidim”; and the “Penitential Maggidim,” who preached especially during the penitential season urging people to prepare for the day of judgment.

Many of the maggidim were itinerant preachers who wandered from town to town, arriving for the Sabbath afternoon to deliver their sermons. Occasionally a famous maggid would be hired by a community as their permanent preacher. Such a resident maggid was called the city preacher, whose function was to go from synagogue to synagogue in a large city.

PREACHING IN THE GEONIC AND POST-GEONIC PERIODS

The great period of homiletic activity was in the Geonic period (the sixth to the tenth centuries) among Sephardic Jews. It was during this period that the great midrashic collections developed. The derasha of the Geonic period was not so much an elucidation of a text as a string of midrashic passages.

The exposition of texts came in the post-geonic period by Spanish darshanim in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Spain and Portugal; and in Holland, Turkey, Italy, and England from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Their sermons had a definite form. They usually had double texts—a verse from the Bible, and a midrashic verse from the Talmud. An introduction followed that led to the derasha proper. This consisted of a number of Scriptural verses and midrashic quotations which the preacher expounded, each quotation serving as an explanation of preceding, and the last being used to interpret the text itself. The sermon ended with a prayer for redemption.

Among the Ashkenazi (Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe), the sermon was largely neglected as part of the regular Sabbath worship. The accumulation of special prayers made the service so long that there was no time for a lengthy discourse. So preaching was restricted to a few times during the year when the rabbi would give a legal discourse on the observance of the holy day. Thus a legal sermon would be given on the Sabbath before the Passover, on the Sabbath of repentance between Rosh Hashanah (New Year), and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and sometimes on the eve of Atonement in which the preacher dealt with the problems of sin, repentance, and atonement. The Musar (ethical sermon) was delivered by a maggid on a Sabbath afternoon, if he happened to be in the community, or by the permanent preacher.

Preaching in the modern manner began in Germany in the early part of the nineteenth century with the advent of Reform Judaism, when a sermon in the vernacular became an integral part of the worship service. The sermon was essentially an interpretation of a Biblical text, with emphasis on its moral, ethical and spiritual implications. This has now become the general practice, even in Conservative and in most Orthodox synagogues, certainly in Western Europe, in America and in other English speaking countries. The modern Jewish sermon is still based on a Biblical text, although many rabbis will speak on anything that is of contemporary concern to their congregations and to the community. It may be topical or textual. The format of the sermon follows the generally accepted format of most modern preaching.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Morris, Joseph, J.Q.R., “About Preaching.” Vol. III, pp. 125–145

———, Jewish Encyclopedia, “Homiletics: Darshan-Maggid.

Levine, R. H. 1967. Preaching in the Jewish Tradition. In R. G. Turnbull (Ed.), Baker’s dictionary of practical theology. (R. G. Turnbull, Ed.) (31). Baker Book House: Grand Rapids, MI