Pesikta Rabbati (Hebrew: פסיקתא רבתי) is a collection of Aggadic Midrash (homilies) on the Pentateuchal and prophetic lessons, the special Sabbaths, etc. It was composed around 845 CE and probably called "rabbati" (the larger) to distinguish it from the earlier Pesiḳta. The word Hebrew most likely means to cross over, referring to the Semitic people crossing over the Euphrates River. ... Aggadah (Aramaic אגדה: tales, lore; pl. ... Neviim [נביאים] or Prophets is the second of the three major sections in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible). ...

In common with the latter it has five entire pisḳot—No. 15 ("Ha-Ḥodesh"), No. 16 ("Korbani Laḥmi"), No. 17 ("Wayeḥi ba-Ḥazi"), No. 18 ("Omer"), No. 33 ("Aniyyah So'arah"), and the larger part of No. 14 ("Para"), but otherwise it is very different from the Pesiḳta, being in every respect like the Tanḥuma midrashim. In Friedmann's edition (Vienna, 1880) it contains, in forty-seven numbers, about fifty-one homilies, part of which are combinations of smaller ones; seven or eight of these homilies belong to Ḥanukkah, and about seven each to the Feast of Weeks and New-Year, while the older Pesiḳta contains one each for Ḥanukkah and the Feast of Weeks and two for New-Year. Shavuot (Hebrew שבועות), ([seven] weeks) (pronounced: shah-voo-OH-t) is one of the three Biblical pilgrimage festivals; it is a major Jewish holiday; it is also known as the Feast of Weeks. ... This article is about the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. ...

Pesiḳta Rabbati contains also homilies to lessons which are not paralleled in the Pesiḳta. There are also various differences between these two Pesiḳtot in regard to the feast-day lessons and the lessons for the Sabbaths of mourning and of comforting. The works are entirely different in content, with the exception of the above-mentioned Nos. 15-18, the part of No. 14, and some few minor parallels. The Pesiḳta contains no halakic exordiums or proems by R. Tanḥuma. But in the Pesiḳta Rabbati there are not less than twenty-eight homilies with such exordiums having the formula "Yelammedenu Rabbenu," followed by proems with the statement "kak pataḥ R. Tanḥuma"; two homilies, Nos. 38 and 45, the first of which is probably defective, have the Yelammedenu without proems with "kak pataḥ," etc. Halakha (Hebrew: הלכה; also transliterated as Halakhah, Halacha, Halakhot and Halachah) is the collective corpus of Jewish religious law, including biblical law (the 613 mitzvot) and later talmudic and rabbinic law as well as customs and traditions. ...

Some of the homilies have more than one proem by R. Tanḥuma. The pisḳot taken from the Pesiḳta have of course no Yelammedenu or Tanḥuma proems; the first part of pisḳah No. 14, which does not belong to the Pesiḳta, has at the beginning two halakic introductions and one proem of R. Tanḥuma. Homilies Nos. 20-24, which together form a midrash to the Decalogue, are without these introductions and proems. Only three of the homilies for the Sabbaths of mourning and comforting have such passages, namely, Nos. 29, 31, 33; but they are prefixed to those homilies, beginning with No. 38 (except No. 46, which is of foreign origin), which have the superscription "Midrash Harninu"—a name used to designate the homilies for New-Year and the Feast of Tabernacles which the old authors found in the Pesiḳta Rabbati. Midrash (Hebrew: מדרש; plural midrashim) is a Hebrew word referring to a method of exegesis of a Biblical text. ... This article is about the list of religious and moral imperatives. ...

The present edition of the Pesiḳta Rabbati, which ends with the homily for the Day of Atonement, is doubtless defective; the older Pesiḳta has also various homilies for Sukkot, Shemini Aẓeret, and the Feast of the Torah. Some of the homilies also, as Nos. 19, 27, 38, 39, 45, are defective. Pesiḳta Rabbati therefore appears to be a combination of various parts, the homilies, perhaps, being added later. It is said above that No. 46 is a foreign addition; here Ps. xc. 1 is interpreted as an acrostic למשה (ascribed to Moses), and there is also a passage from the Midrash Konen; other passages also may have been added, as the passage in No. 20, which is elsewhere quoted in the name of the "Pirḳe Hekalot" and of "Ma'aseh Bereshit" (comp. also Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrash, i. 58). No. 36 was considered doubtful on account of its contents; No. 26 is peculiar, referring not to a Scripture passage but to a verse or a parable composed by the author. The diction and style are very fine in many passages. In the beginning of the first homily, which shows the characteristics of the "genuine" portions of the Pesiḳta Rabbati, in the proems of R. Tanḥuma following the halakic exordium, the year 845 is indicated as the date of composition of the work; there are no grounds for regarding the date as a gloss. Yom Kippur (יום כפור yom kippūr, day of atonement) is the Jewish holiday of the Day of Atonement. ... Sukkot (סוכות or סֻכּוֹת sukkōt, booths) or Succoth or Sukkos is a Biblical pilgrimage festival which occurs in autumn on the 15th day of the month of Tishri (early- to late-October). ... Psalms (Tehilim תהילים, in Hebrew) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. ... Jellinek refers to: Adolf Jellinek(Adolph Jellinek) (1821 Czech - 1893) Emil Jellinek, or Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853 Leipzig - 1918), son of Adolf Jellinek Georg Jellinek (1851 - 1911) George Jellinek Hans Jellinek (1901 - 1969) Max Hermann Jellinek (1868 - 1938), son of Adolf Jellinek Hermann Jellinek (1822 Czech - 1848) Oskar Jellinek (1886...

In the appendix to the Friedmann edition four homilies are printed from a manuscript, Nos. 1 and 2 of which have yelammedenus and proems. The midrash referred to here is a later, shorter midrash for the feast-days, designated as "New Pesiḳta," and frequently drawing upon the Pesiḳta Rabbati; it has been published by Jellinek in "Bet ha-Midrash," vi. 36-70.

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.