Q&A: Jewish Law and Aggadah
Jewish Law and Aggadah
Question
Hello and blessings. I listened to the Rabbi’s lectures on Torah study, and now I’m listening to “To the Perplexed of the Generation” (lectures on a certain book that the Rabbi also used as a basis for discussion and expansion), and there the Rabbi cited the words of Nefesh HaChaim in Gate 4, chapter 6, and said that the conclusion is that studying Jewish law is both God’s will and His speech, whereas studying aggadah is only God’s speech. The conclusion, then, is that the greatest cleaving is through Jewish law. But I don’t really understand this, because Nefesh HaChaim said that God and His will are one, and likewise that God and His speech are one. So it isn’t very clear to me what it means to say that Jewish law is a greater cleaving, since both are cleaving to God Himself. How can there be more and less when God/Himself is one and the same?
Thank you very much.
Answer
This is not a mathematical identity. It is obvious to Rabbi Chaim from the outset that Jewish law is identical with Him, whereas aggadah requires explanations. That is why David asks that Psalms be like tractates Negaim and Ohalot (an example that he himself brings).
Discussion on Answer
I don’t know how to explain that identity. When we say that this and that are one, we mean that there is an intimate connection between them, but that doesn’t mean there is identity. And when two different things are identical to a third thing, they are not identical to one another. See column 397 on the labor of building.
Hi, I don’t feel comfortable pestering about a question from two weeks ago. But I just looked again at Nefesh HaChaim in Gate 4, chapter 2, and everything he says there when he brings King David is not brought as proof that aggadah is inferior to study and so on, but only that the main thing in learning is to toil and understand it, not to feel cleaving. But it has no connection to the issue of Jewish law and aggadah, and as he brings there a midrash to prove against the notion of cleaving (which is symbolized by reciting Psalms) saying that one has to study everything, and that midrash also mentions aggadah. So once again, apparently there is no proof at all from Nefesh HaChaim that aggadah is less than Jewish law in the conclusion. Only what he wrote: “And even if he is occupied with words of aggadah that have no practical implication for any law, even so he is cleaving to the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He…”—meaning, that was an initial mistaken assumption that was rejected, and the conclusion is that in this too you are cleaving to God. So what the Rabbi wanted to prove in the first answer from King David is apparently no proof at all.
The relationship between Jewish law and aggadah can be seen there in several places. Jewish law is also God’s will, and aggadah is only God’s word. The example of Negaim and Psalms was brought to show that the goal is cleaving in the learning itself and not an experience. Cleaving through learning is mainly with Jewish law. Aggadah is more capable of creating an experience. But you’re right that this is not written there directly, only indirectly.
It’s true that this is obvious to him, and it’s true that he explained aggadah. The question is whether after he explained it, it became equal or not. And I’d be glad if the Rabbi could explain what kind of identity this is..