Legends and Myths
The midrash contains a number of stories, legends, parables, proverbs, and sentences, with many ethical and halakic maxims. Of the interesting myths may be mentioned that of Remus and Romulus, to whom God sends a she-wolf to suckle (Midr. Teh. to Ps. x. 6; Buber, l.c. p. 45a), and the legend of Emperor Hadrian, who wished to measure the depth of the Adriatic Sea (Midr. Teh. to Ps. xciii. 6; Buber, l.c. p. 208a, b). Among the proverbs which are found only in this midrash may be mentioned the following:
- Walls have ears (Midr. Teh. to Ps. vii. 1; Buber, l.c. p. 31b), i.e., care should be taken in disclosing secrets even in a locked room (comp. Rashi in Ber. 8b, who quotes this proverb).
- Woe to the living who prays to the dead; woe to the hero who has need of the weak; woe to the seeing who asks help of the blind; and woe to the century in which a woman is the leader (Midr. Teh. to Ps. xxii. 20; Buber, l.c. p. 96b).
Many a custom may be traced to this midrash, e.g., that of not drinking any water on the Sabbath before the evening (Ṭur and Shulḥan Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 291; comp. Midr. Teh., ed. Buber, p. 51b, note 48).
Read more about this topic: Midrash Tehillim
Famous quotes containing the words legends and/or myths:
“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earthmounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“... the first reason for psychology’s failure to understand what people are and how they act, is that clinicians and psychiatrists, who are generally the theoreticians on these matters, have essentially made up myths without any evidence to support them; the second reason for psychology’s failure is that personality theory has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context.”
—Naomi Weisstein (b. 1939)