Mekhilta - Mekhilta of R. Ishmael

Mekhilta of R. Ishmael

The author, or more correctly the redactor, of the Mekhilta can not be definitely ascertained. R. Nissim ben Jacob, in his Mafteaḥ (to Shab. 106b), and R. Samuel ha-Nagid, in his introduction to the Talmud, refer to it as the "Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael," thus ascribing the authorship to Ishmael. Maimonides likewise says in the introduction to his Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah: "R. Ishmael interpreted from 've'eleh shemot' to the end of the Torah, and this explanation is called 'Mekhilta.' R. Akiba also wrote a Mekhilta." This R. Ishmael, however, is neither an amora by the name of Ishmael, as Z. Frankel assumed (Introduction to Yerushalmi, p. 105b), nor Rebbi's contemporary, Rabbi Ishmael ben Jose, as Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya thought (Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah, p. 24a, Zolkiev, 1804). He is, on the contrary, identical with R. Ishmael ben Elisha, R. Akiba's contemporary, as is shown by the passage of Maimonides quoted above.

The present Mekhilta cannot, however, be the one composed by R. Ishmael, as is proved by the references in it to R. Ishmael's pupils and to other later tannaim. Both Maimonides and the author of the Halakhot Gedolot, moreover, refer, evidently on the basis of a tradition, to a much larger Mekhilta extending from Ex. i. to the end of the Torah, while the midrash here considered discusses only certain passages of Exodus. It must be assumed, therefore, that R. Ishmael composed an explanatory midrash to the last four books of the Torah, and that his pupils amplified it (M. Friedmann, Einleitung in die Mechilta, pp. 64, 73; Hoffmann, l.c. p. 73).

A later editor, intending to compile a halakhic midrash to Exodus, took R. Ishmael's work on the book, beginning with ch. xii., since the first eleven chapters contained no references to the Law (Friedmann, l.c. p. 72; Hoffmann, l.c. p. 37). He even omitted passages from the portion which he took, but, by way of compensation, he incorporated much material from the other halakhic midrashim, Sifra, R. Shimon bar Yochai's Mekilta, and the Sifre to Deuteronomy. Since the last two works were from a different source, he generally designated them by the introductory phrase, "dabar aḥer" = "another explanation," placing them after the sections taken from R. Ishmael's midrash. But the redactor based his work on the midrash of R. Ishmael's school, and the sentences of R. Ishmael and his pupils constitute the larger part of his Mekhilta. Similarly, most of the anonymous maxims in the work were derived from the same source, so that it also was known as the "Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael." The redactor must have been a pupil of Rebbi, since the latter is frequently mentioned (comp. Abraham ibn Daud in Sefer HaKabbalah in A. Neubauer, M. J. C., p. 57, Oxford, 1887, who likewise ascribes it to a pupil of Rebbi).

He cannot, however, have been R. Hoshaiah, as A. Epstein assumes (Beiträge zur Jüdischen Alterthumskunde, p. 55, Vienna, 1887), as might be inferred from Abraham ibn Daud's reference, for Hoshaiah is mentioned in the Mekhilta (ed. Weiss, p. 60b). Abba Arika (Rab) therefore probably redacted the work, as Menahem ibn Zerah says in the preface to Zedah la-Derek (p. 14b). Rab, however, did not do this in Babylonia, as I.H. Weiss assumes (Einleitung in die Mechilta, p. 19), but in Palestine, taking it after its compilation to Babylonia, so that it was called "Mekhilta de-Eretz Yisrael".)