Midrash Taame Haserot ve-Yeterot (Hebrew: מדרש טעמי חסרות ויתרות) is one of the smaller midrashim, which has been edited most completely by Wertheimer (Jerusalem, 1899). It gives haggadic explanations not only of the words which are written defective or plene, as the title of the work implies, but also of a great number of those which are not read as they are written (comp. on the "ketib" in Wertheimer's ed., Nos. 8, 11, 13, 19, 21-30, 37, 51, 69, 89, 106, 111, 113, 124, 125, 127-129, 131, 134, 138-140, 181, and No. 12 on a word which is read without being written).
There are likewise notes on names and words which are read differently in different places (e.g., in Nos. 17, 20, 123, 126, 141, 142, 164, 172), on the ἅπαξ λεγόμενον שמיכה, Book of Judges iv. 18 (No. 108), on the peculiar writing of certain words (e.g., No. 133 on לםרבה, Isa. ix. 6, and No. 163 on ההלכוא, Josh. x. 24), and on the suspended letters in Judges xviii. 30, Ps. lxxx. 14, and Job xlviii. 50 (Nos. 112-114).
The midrash may be termed, therefore, a Masoretic one, although it frequently deviates from the Masorah. The haggadic interpretations are derived for the most part from scattered passages in the Talmud and in the Midrashim, while the arrangement is capricious, the individual words being arranged neither according to the order of the alphabet nor according to the sequence of the books of the Bible. In the different manuscripts and editions of it this midrash varies considerably, not only in the number and arrangement of the passages which it discusses, but also in the wording of individual interpretations. It is cited under its present title in the Tosafot (Ber. 34a), in the Sefer Miẓwot Gadol of Moses of Coucy, and by Asher ben Jehiel, while it is called "Midrash Ḥaserot we-Yeterot" by Solomon Norzi. A brief extract from this work enumerating the words to be written "defective" or "plene," but omitting the reason therefor, is contained in the Maḥzor Vitry, § 518, pp. 656 et seq.
To the Masoretic midrashim belong also the explanations of passages read and not written, or written and not read which have been edited from an old grammatical and Masoretic miscellany in the Manuel du Lecteur of Joseph Derenbourg (Paris, 1871), and in Jacob Saphir's Eben Sappir (ii. 218 et seq., Mayence, 1874), and reprinted by A. Jellinek in his B. H. (v. 27-30).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906.