Yalkut haMachiri

Yalkut haMachiri(Hebrew:ילקוט המכירי) is a work ofmidrash.Its author was Machir ben Abba Mari, but his country and the period in which he lived are not definitively known.Moritz Steinschneidersays that Machir lived inProvence;but his date remains a subject of discussion among modern scholars.Strack & Stemberger (1991)say that the work was most probably composed in the late 13th or 14th century.

Contents

Yalkut haMachiri is similar in its contents toYalkut Shimoni,with the difference that while the latter covers the wholeBible,haMachiri covers only the books ofIsaiah,Jeremiah,Ezekiel,thetwelve Minor Prophets,Psalms,Proverbs,andJob.

In the introductions to these books Machir said he composed the work to gather the scattered aggadic teachings into one group.

Sources

Machir used the following sources in his compilation: the twoTalmuds,theTosefta,theminor treatises,theSifra,theSifre,Pesikta Rabbati,Midrash Rabbahon thePentateuch,Midrash Ḳohelet,Midrash Tehillim,Midrash Mishle,Midrash Iyyob,Midrash Tanhuma,a Midrash quoted as דשחנו "ע,Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer,Seder Olam Rabbah,andHaggadat Shir ha-Shirim,frequently quoting the last-named Midrash in the part onBook of Isaiah.Machir had another version ofDeuteronomy Rabbah,of which only the part on the section "Devarim" exists now.It is difficult to ascertain whether Machir knew ofMidrash Yelammedenu;he quotes onlyMidrash Tanhuma,but the passages which he cites are not found in the present text of that work, so that it is possible that he took these passages from the Yelammedenu.

Only the following parts of theYalḳuṭ ha-Makiriare extant: Isaiah, published by I. Spirafrom a Leyden manuscript; Psalms, published byS. Buber(Berdychev, 1899) from two manuscripts (one, previously in the possession of Joseph b. Solomon of Vyazhin, was used by David Luria, and its introduction was published byM. StraschuninFuenn'sḲiryah Ne'emanah,p. 304; the other is MS. No. 167 in theBodleian Library); the twelve Minor Prophets;Proverbs, extant in a manuscript which is in the possession of Grünhut,and which was seen byAzulai,published by Grünhut in Jerusalem in 5662 (= 1902).

Significance

Moses Gasterattached great importance to Yalkut haMachiri, thinking that it was older than Yalkut Shimoni, the second part of which at least Gaster concluded was a bad adaptation from Yalkut haMachiri. Gaster's conclusions, however, were contested by A. Epstein,who declares that Yalkut haMachiri is both inferior to and later than "Yalkut Shimoni." Buber conclusively provedthat the two works are independent of each other, that Machir lived later than the author of the "Yalkut Shimoni," and that he had not seen Yalkut Shimoni.Samuel Poznanskithinks that Machir lived in the fourteenth century.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:M. Seligsohn(1901–1906)."MACHIR BEN ABBA MARI".InSinger, Isidore;et al. (eds.).The Jewish Encyclopedia.New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
• TheJEcites Poznanski, in R. E. J. xl. 282 et seq., and the sources mentioned above.
• Strack,H.L.;Stemberger,G. (1991),Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash,Edinburgh:T&T Clark,ISBN978-0-8006-2524-5.