The study of midrash is one that I think has been de-emphasized in high school chumash/navi curriculum. I am certainly sympathetic to the need to teach our students how to understand the peshat of a passuk and do not think it is healthy that many students leave elementary school with the impression that the midrashim are actually part of the text. However, thoughtful study of midrash ought to be part of any serious attempt to understand tanach. In particular, the midrashim quoted by rashi have become part of the canon, as it were, and we do our students a disservice by leaving them with a fifth grade level of understanding them.
What I think we have a responsibility to do is to teach midrash in a sophisticated manner and give our students the tools to analyze midrashim on their own.
For example, I was recently teaching the topic of the nefilim from perek 6 in Bereshit. After looking at the parallel in Bamidbar, I raised the issue of how the nefillim could still be around in Bamidbar 13:33, if everyone besides Noach’s family perished in the mabul. After discussing what I think is the peshat, that the term nefilim was used to describe mighty people in the time of tanach, even if they were not necessarily of the same family, I brought in the midrashic solution. When the palit comes to Avraham (Bereshit 14:13) the midrash says (quoted by Rashi) that it was Og (that actually works well with the passkim about Og in Devarim) and then says that he was also a survivor from the mabul, because he held on the teivah.
That midrash is, I believe, trying to solve the problem of how the nefillim were still around post-mabul. The part about the palit for Avraham being Og is used by the midrash to explain why Moshe was afraid to fight Og in Bamidbar 21:34 (also quoted by Rashi), because he thought Og would have merits from this act of kindness to Avraham. While I do not think that this approach is the peshat, it is another example of where we can show the basis for a midrash (in this case, why the midrash identifies the palit as Og) and demonstrate that midrash can be understood in a more sophisticated manner.
I readily admit that I do not understand what the basis for every midrash is and that there are many where it is very unclear what message the midrash is trying to convey, but I think the attempt to understand both the basis and meaning has to be part of both our personal learning of tanach and of how we teach it to our students.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2014 09:37PM by mlb.
