n in the Pentateuch, which was to them
essentially the Book of the Law, and, therefore, not a fit subject for
Mashal, _i.e._, inner meanings.[310] Hence, their allegorism was more
natural, more real, and truer to the spirit of that which they
interpreted. They allegorized when an allegory was invited, whereas
Philo and his school often forced their philosophical meanings in face
of the clear purport of the text, and without regard to the Hebrew. In
the one case allegory was a genuine development, and might have been
adopted by the original prophet: in the other, it was reconstruction;
and the artificial un-Hebraic character of the Hellenistic commentary
was one of the causes of its disappearance from Jewish tradition. While
the Palestinian allegorists based their continuous philosophical
interpretation upon the Wisdom Books, they, at the same time, looked for
secondary meanings wherever opportunity offered, and found lessons in
letters and teachings in names. An early school of commentators was
actually known as [Hebrew: dorsh rshomot][311] or interpreters of signs,
and their method was by examination of the letters of a word, or by
comparison of different verses, to explore homilies. For instance, the
verse, "And God showed Moses a tree" (Exod. xvi. 26), by which he
sweetened the waters at Marah, symbolized, by a play on the word
[Hebrew: vyvrhu],[312] that God taught Moses the Torah, of which it is
said, "She is a tree of life" (Prov. iii. 18). Another happy example of
this method occurs in the sixth section of the Pirke Abot, where the
names in the itinerary, [Hebrew: mmtna nhlial, vmnhlial bmot] (Numb.
xxi. 19), are invested with a spiritual meaning. Whoever believes in the
Torah, it is written, shall be exalted, as it is said, "From the gift of
the law man attains the heritage of God, and by that heritage he reaches
Heaven."

In this passage of Palestinian allegorism, it may be noticed that the
Torah is regarded as a spiritual bond between man and God, and as a
sort of intermediary power between them. This feature is almost as
frequent in the Midrash as the Logos-idea in Philo, so that it may be
said that rabbinic theology finds an idealism in the Torah which
corresponds to the idealism of the Philonic Word. It is expressed, no
doubt, naively and fancifully, even playfully, without attempt at
philosophical deductions. It is informed by the same spirit as the
Alexandrian allegory, but it is essentially poetical and