The storytelling aspect of midrash—charming or exasperating, stolidly obtuse or wonderfully insightful—is what we are concerned with here. In the vast compilation of Bible commentary known as midrash, much of it embedded in Talmud, only one genre, aggadah, is concerned with storytelling. Another, halakhah, addresses scripture with an eye to its legal aspects. It is usual to make this distinction between the two. The Bible was concerned with setting forth an ethical basis for