His exordiums in particular were often hobbling and always unassuming.
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The chapters start with meaty exordiums that set the stage for the contents to come.
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Four years ago, I published it on my website along with some other zingers and exordiums.
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There are also various differences between these two Pesiktot in regard to the Torah readings for holidays and for the Sabbaths of mourning and of comforting. The works are entirely different in content, with the exception of the above-mentioned Nos. 15-18, the part of No. 14, and some few minor parallels. PdRK contains no halakhic exordiums or proems by R. Tanhuma. But in the Pesikta Rabbati there are 28 homilies with such exordiums having the formula "Yelammedenu Rabbenu," followed by proems with the statement "kach patach R. Tanhuma"; while two homilies (Nos. 38 and 45, the first of which is probably defective) have the Yelammedenu but lack proems with "kach patach".
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Some halakhic questions found also in Tanḥuma in homilies on Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus are quite differently applied and developed in the exordiums of Devarim Rabbah. This Midrash, in its use of the old sources (such as Yerushalmi, Bereshit Rabbah, and Vayikra Rabbah) often shows a freer treatment, and endeavors to translate Aramaic passages into Hebrew and to modernize them.
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The manuscript also has a different exordium for the beginning of Ekev. From this point to the pericope Ki Tavo, it agrees with the print editions (the exordiums, however, are preceded only by the word הלכה, without אדם מישראל); in pericope Nitvavim and its additions it agrees with the Codex Munich. For Vayelech (also on Deuteronomy 31:14) it has a different text; and in the last two pericopes (Haazinu and Vezot Habracha) it agrees with Midrash Tanhuma in present editions.
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Dimitry of Rostov's Great Menaion Reader (1714) The Great Menaion Reader () is the official Russian Orthodox menologium, i.e., a collection of biblical books with interpretations of exordiums, patericons, translated or original hagiographies of Russian saints, works of church fathers, and Russian ecclesiastical writers. Each of the twelve volumes corresponds to a certain month (hence, the name chet’yi-minei or monthly readings, from the Greek word menaion) and subdivided into days. Also, the Great Menaion Reader includes the so-called kormchiye knigi (books of guidelines, a.k.a.
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The name Devarim Rabbah is given to the Midrash on Deuteronomy in Codex Munich, No. 229. This contains for the first pericope (Devarim) four entirely different homilies, which have only a few points of similarity to the modern Devarim Rabbah, but which are likewise composed according to the Tanhuma form, and are on the same Scriptural sections as the homilies in Devarim Rabbah (on Deuteronomy 1:1, 1:10, 2:2, 2:31). The second and third pericopes have also halakhic exordiums closing with the words, מנין ממה שקרינו בענין..., in which, however, the question is put without any formula. The Munich manuscript agrees with Devarim Rabbah in the pericopes Ekev to Nitzavim, but has additions to the latter; the remaining pericopes are lacking. Another manuscript Midrash, which was in the possession of A. Epstein circa 1900, contains not only the same homilies as Codex Munich for the pericope Devarim, but also has similar homilies for the pericope Va'etchanan, which are entirely different from Devarim Rabbah and are on the sedarim Deuteronomy 3:23 (not 4:7), 4:25, 4:41, 6:4; all these four homilies have halakhic exordiums.
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Then follow other halakhic explanations (compare 5:8; 7:1; 7:8; 9:1; 11:1) and aggadic interpretations, the last of which are deduced from the Scriptural section of the Sabbath lesson. Thus, a connection between the halakhic question and the text or the first verse of the lesson is found, and the speaker can proceed to the further discussion of the homily, the exordiums closing generally with the formula מנין ממה שקרינו בענין, followed by the first words of the Scriptural section. The formula occurs 18 times as cited; twice as מנין שכתוב בענין; once as מנין שכך כתוב; twice as מנין שנאמר; it is lacking altogether in only a few of the homilies.
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Each homily has a set structure: it begins with a halakhic exordium, has one or more proems, followed by the commentary (covering only the first verse, or a few verses from the beginning of the section read), and ends with an easily recognizable peroration containing a promise of the Messianic future or some other consolatory thought, followed by a verse of the Bible. The comments referring only to the first verses of the lesson characterize Devarim Rabbah as a Midrash of homilies, in which even the proems are independent homilies rather than introductions to the comment on the Scriptural section. The exordiums show that Devarim Rabbah is very similar to the Tanḥuma Midrashim. In the halakhic exordium (an essential of the aggadic discourse which is found neither in Pesikta Rabbati and Vayikra Rabbah nor in Bereshit Rabbah), an apparently irrelevant legal question is put, and answered with a passage from the Mishnah (about twenty times) or Tosefta, etc. Such answers are generally introduced in Devarim Rabbah by the formula כך שנו חכמים, though the formula commonly used in the Tanhuma (כך שנו רבותינו) occurs twice (in 1:10,15).
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