Midrash ha-Hefez


Midrash ha-Ḥefez, or "Commentary of the Book of the Law", is a Hebrew midrash written by the physician and Rabbi, Yihye ibn Suleiman al-Dhamari, otherwise known as Zechariah ben Solomon ha-Rofé, which he began to write in 1430 in Yemen and concluded some years later. The work contains commentaries and homilies on the Pentateuch, Book of Esther, and Book of Lamentations, as well as a commentary on the haftarot, written in a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic. A commentary exists under the name "al-Durra al-Muntakhaba".

Content

The midrash covering the Five Books of Moses is characterized as both a midrash and as a commentary. It is full of philosophical and scientific topics, as was common during the Middle Ages in Yemen. The author was greatly influenced by all of Maimonides' books, but especially by his philosophical thought. Many of the homilies contained in the midrash are written in the form of an allegory which, in this case, differs from the literary style of Maimonides. The work is written mostly in Judeo-Arabic, like much other Jewish scholarship at the time.
According to S. Schecter, other materials once comprised the work Midrash ha-Hefez, such as the riddles posed by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, although these excerpts are not found in the edition of Midrash ha-Hefez published by Meir Havazelet. Schecter published his findings in a different publication, and which are now a part of the manuscript collections in the British Library. The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and the Royal Library in Berlin also possess copies of this Midrash.
The midrashic work contains a wisdom contest between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. It is noted as part of a long literary tradition about these figures, and for its inclusion of a number of Hebrew riddles:
  • There is an enclosure with ten doors: when one is open nine are shut; when nine are open, one is shut. — The womb, the bodily orifices, and the umbilical cord.
  • Living, moves not, yet when its head is cut off it moves. — A ship in the sea.
  • What was that which is produced from the ground, yet produces it, while its food is the fruit of the ground? — A wick.

Editions and translations

The Midrash ha-Ḥefez was translated into Hebrew by Rabbi Dr. Meir Havazelet, and published by Mossad Harav Kook in Jerusalem - Genesis and Exodus; and in 1992 - Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and contains an Introduction by Rabbi Yosef Qafih.

Manuscripts