God, Checkmate! Midrashic Hermeneutics as Theological Medium

This book aims at being a davar akher on Midrash, that is an alternative and different take on the exegetical interpretative activity of the Rabbis. Its topic is not Midrash per se, nor another academic endeavour to survey aspects of midrashic literature. No theory of Midrash, descriptive of the genre will be found in the forthcoming pages. If this book aims at being a davar akher, it is because it proposes readings of very specific midrashic texts, each one taken as an independent unit, in a way that is rarely, if not ever, performed in classical academic or rabbinic writings. Central to the approach that will be presented in the following pages is the idea that hermeneutics embedded in midrashic texts is a medium to covertly express daring and powerful theological ideas. Midrash, hermeneutics and theology must be thought of as the « three cord strands not easily broken » evoked by Ecclesiastes, a robust cord built by the sages, not to interpret the biblical text but to use its verses and its words - the sages mental horizon and tool-box -, to express what the Bible did not or could not overtly say.