As far as I know (and I would love to be corrected) Ellul is the only Hebrew month which has Midrash on its name. The one that everybody remembers is the notarikon<\/p>\n
א<\/span>ני ל<\/span>דודי ו<\/span>דודי ל<\/span>י<\/p><\/blockquote>\nfrom Song of Songs 6, 3<\/a>, but there are several more. That one itself is part of a set of three verses with an acrostic אלול<\/span>, and the other two are Deuteronomy 30, 6<\/a>:<\/p>\nומל יהוה אלהיך א<\/span>ת ל<\/span>בבך ו<\/span>את ל<\/span>בב זרעך<\/p><\/blockquote>\nand Esther 9,22<\/a>:<\/p>\nמשלח מנות א<\/span>יש ל<\/span>רעהו ו<\/span>מתנות ל<\/span>אבינים<\/p><\/blockquote>\n so the three verses together point us to תפילה, תשובה וצדקהת<\/span>: prayer, repentance and charity, and those lead us to redemption in Isaiah 59, 20<\/a>:<\/p>\nובא לציון גואל ול<\/span>שבי פשע ביעקב.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhy do I mention all this? Not because I’ve decided to turn this into a preachy blog, nor even because I was looking for a context where I could use the word “hermeneutics” without seeming too contrived, but because I was musing about different kinds of exegesis. Of the four streams that make up the Pardes<\/a> – Peshat, Remez, Drash and Sod – these are firmly in the category of Remez. That can sometimes appear as superficial wordplay (though always a lot of fun for a crossword addict like myself), and one could ask, if this is valid Midrash, why aren’t Bible Codes<\/a> valid Midrash too?<\/p>\nI think the answer is that we judge Midrash not by how it’s done, but by how edifying the results are. Bible codes, depending on where you find them, seem to reduce the Torah either to the level of Nostradamus<\/a> or to an immensely boring directory of scholars<\/a>.<\/p>\n