Lamentations Rabbah - The Proems

The Proems

The sources from which Yerushalmi drew must have been accessible to the author of Eichah Rabbah, which was certainly edited some time after the completion of the former, and which probably borrowed from it. In the same way older collections must have served as the common source for Eichah Rabbah, Bereshit Rabbah, and especially for the Pesiḳta de-Rab Kahana. The haggadic comment on Hosea vi. 7 appears earlier as a proem to a discourse on Lamentations, and is included among the proems in this Midrash (ed. S. Buber, p. 3a) as a comment on Gen. iii. 9 (Ber. R. xix.). The close of this proem, which serves as a connecting link with Lamentations i. 1, is found also in the Pesiḳta as the first proem to pericope xv. (p. 119a) to Isa. i. 21, the Hafṭarah for the Sabbath before the Ninth of Ab (comp. Müller, Einleitung in die Responsen, p. 38).

The same is the case with the second and fourth proems in the Pesiḳta, which are identical with the fourth and third (according to the correct enumeration) of the proems to Eichah Rabbah; the fifth in the Pesiḳta (120b-121b), which corresponds to the second in this Midrash, has a defective ending. With a change in the final sentences, the first proem in Eichah Rabbah is used as a proem in the Pesiḳta pericope xi. (110a), and with a change of the proem text and of its close, proem 10 (9) of Eichah Rabbah is found as a proem in the Pesiḳta pericope xix. (137b).

On the other hand, there is found embodied in the exposition of Lam. i. 2, "she weepeth sore in the night," etc., a whole proem, the text of which is Ps. lxxvii. 7 et seq., "I remember my lute-playing in the night," etc. (Hebr.); this proem contains also the final sentence which serves as introduction to the section Isa. xlix. 14 (ed. Buber, p. 30a), and it is known from the Pesiḳta pericope xvii. (129b et seq.) to be a proem to a discourse on this section, which is intended for the second "consolatory Sabbath" after the Ninth of Ab. From this it becomes evident that the collector of the Eichah Rabbah used the haggadic exposition—found in the Pesiḳta fulfilling its original purpose—as a comment on Lam. i. 2. The same is true of the commentary to Lam. i. 21 (ed. Buber, p. 47a), for which there was used a proem on the Pesiḳta section Isa. li. 12, intended originally for the fourth Sabbath after the Ninth of Ab, and a section which had for its text this verse of Lamentations (pericope xix., p. 138a); and also in regard to the comment to Lam. iii. 39 (ed. Buber, p. 68a), which consists of a proem of the Pesiḳta pericope xviii. (p. 130b).

But the author also added four proems from Eichah Rabbah itself (29, 18, 19, 31, according to the correct enumeration), retaining the introductory formula ר ... פתח, as a commentary to Lam. iii. 1, 14, 15; iv. 12 (ed. Buber, pp. 61b, 64a, b, 74b). The opinion set forth in the introduction to Buber's critical edition that the arrangement of the proems at the beginning of the work was made by a later editor, who included the marked comments of the Midrash as proems, and who, after prefixing the introductory formula to a comment on the Midrash Ḳohelet xii. 1 et seq., used it as a proem for Lam. R. xxiv. (xxiii.), is entirely wrong. There can be no doubt that precisely the opposite process has taken place. The entire interpretation in Eccl. R. xii. 1-7, which consists of two versions, is composed of two proems—that in Wayiḳra Rabbah, ch. 18, beginning, and the proem in this Midrash. The numberless proems originating in the synagogal discourses of the earliest times must be regarded as the richest source upon which the collectors of the midrashim could draw (comp. Monatsschrift, 1880, p. 185; Maybaum, Die Aeltesten Phasen in der Entwickelung der Jüdischen Predigt, p. 42).