Ecclesiastes Rabbah - Adaptations From Earlier Midrashim

Adaptations From Earlier Midrashim

The author confined himself chiefly to collecting and editing, and did not compose new introductions to the sections. He, dated between the sixth and eight centuries however, used to a great extent the introductions which he found either in the earlier midrashim—Bereshit (Genesis) Rabbah, Pesiḳta, Ekah (Lamentations) Rabbati, Wayiḳra (Leviticus) Rabbah, Shir ha-Shirim (Canticles) Rabbah—or in the collections from which those midrashim were compiled. This shows the important part which the introductions to the earlier midrashim played in the later midrashim, in that they served either as sources or as component parts of the latter. For introductions to commentaries on the Bible text and for homilies on the sedarim and Pesiḳta cycle, it was customary to choose texts occurring not in the Pentateuch, but chiefly in the Hagiographa, including Ecclesiastes. This, even in very early times, gave rise to a haggadic treatment of numerous passages in Ecclesiastes, which in turn furnished rich material for the compilation of the Midrash Ḳohelet.

The longest passages in the Midrash Ḳohelet are the introductions to Pesiḳta and Wayiḳra Rabbah, all of which the author used. Some introductions were abbreviated, and introductions from different midrashim were combined in a comment on one passage of Ecclesiastes. For instance, the long passage on Eccl. xii. 1-7 is a combination of the introduction to Wayiḳra Rabbah xviii. 1 and the twenty-third introduction in Ekah Rabbati (ed. S. Buber, pp. 9a-12a). Of the 96 columns which the Midrash Ḳohelet contains in the Venice edition (fols. 66c-90b), nearly twenty are occupied by expositions which the author took from introductions in Bereshit Rabbah, Pesiḳta, Wayiḳra Rabbah, and Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah; namely, the comments to Eccl. i. 1, 3, 5, 18; ii. 2, 12b, 21, 23; iii. 1, 11, 15, 16; v. 4, 5, 8, 15; vi. 7; vii. 14, 23 et seq.; viii. 1; ix. 2, 15; x. 20; xi. 2, 6; xii. 1-7. Many other passages besides the introductions have been transferred from those sources to the Midrash Ḳohelet. Moreover, it contains several passages in common with Ruth R.; compare especially the comment on Eccl. vii.8, which includes the story of R. Meïr and his teacher Elisha b. Abuya, with Ruth Rabbah vi. (to Book of Ruth iii. 13), with which it agrees almost verbatim. In this case the story was not taken direct from its source in Yer. Ḥag. ii. 77b, c.