Passover Column: Between Leaven and the Evil Inclination – Another Look at Homiletics (Column 65)

With God’s help

In column 52 I defined the difference between pilpul and homily. I argued there that a homily is a flawed inference with a correct conclusion, whereas pilpul is a correct inference (apparently) with an incorrect conclusion (a kind of riddle). We are accustomed to associating the term homily in this “lower” sense with various preachers, Hasidic witticisms (Ma'ayanah Shel Torah) and the like. But the aggadic midrashim of the Sages are usually perceived by us as stories of depth, and the assumption is that if we do not see this, then If it is empty, it is from you (if it seems empty, the deficiency is ours). But sometimes I have the feeling that at least some of the Sages’ aggadot are in the category of homily. I mean to say that, like preachers in our own time, the Sages too sometimes use free associations in order to express ideas, and do not seriously intend to ground them in the homiletic inference. If that is so, then it is not always correct to examine their inference with too punctilious an eye, or to explain all the details of the aggadah and its structure in a coherent way. Sometimes perhaps they only want to express some idea in a fairly free manner, and the links and sources are not necessarily good and valid proofs of that idea. In this post I would like to illustrate the point with respect to the prohibition of leaven.

On Leaven and the Evil Inclination

What do I mean? Preachers of every era (and of course in our own time as well) frequently link leaven to the evil inclination. It has almost become an article of faith that removing leaven is the removal of the evil inclination and the battle against it. "It shall not be seen" and "it shall not be found" (“it shall not be seen” and “it shall not be found”) are universal symbols of the struggle against the evil inclination. The search for leaven in holes and crevices naturally receives metaphorical meanings in this direction as well. The exodus to freedom is interpreted as taking control into our own hands and freeing ourselves from the yoke of the inclination.

This homiletic tendency is not a modern invention. It appears in the literature of Jewish thought, and especially, of course, in Hasidic literature, but it seems that already the Sages linked leaven to the inclination (mainly in the Zohar and kabbalistic literature)[1]. Some have understood in this way also the prayer that appears in Berakhot 17a:

And Rabbi Alexandri, after he prayed, would say this: Master of the universe, it is revealed and known before You that our desire is to do Your will; and what prevents us? The leaven in the dough and subjugation to the kingdoms. May it be Your will that You save us from their hand, and we will return to perform the statutes of Your will with a whole heart.

Admittedly, the connection to leaven here is not necessary, since the term the leaven in the dough can also be interpreted simply as a metaphorical designation for the inclination. There is not necessarily any link here between the evil inclination and the prohibitions of leaven. And yet, this connection is deeply rooted in Jewish thought regarding the prohibitions of leaven.

Explanations in the Homiletic Mode

A brief look through homiletic literature shows that the connection between leaven and the inclination can be explained and viewed in all sorts of ways. Leaven causes the dough to rise, and so too the inclination (or the desire for honor) inflates a person. The inclination seems to us as though it is inside us, but in fact it is something external, exactly like the leaven in the dough. The evil inclination has good and bad uses (with both your inclinations, “with both your inclinations”), and so does leaven (leaven is forbidden on Passover, but it is useful and entirely permitted during the rest of the year).

What all these themes share, in the relationship between leaven and the evil inclination, is that all of them are self-evident to us even without the connection to leaven. If I were to tell you that the inclination has good and bad uses, or that it inflates a person, and so on, I could say that with no connection whatsoever to the analogy of leaven. This analogy adds nothing. Moreover, someone who does not agree with such a conclusion will not accept it on the basis of the connection to leaven either, and someone who does accept the conclusion will accept it even without the connection to leaven. So what does this connection add? Here one can see the hallmarks of homily as defined above. There is a correct conclusion here (usually even a trivial one), but the argument that leads to it is rather shaky.

Another problem with this connection, which of course is related to the previous one, is that all these explanations are ex post facto explanations. I could take them seriously if there were a clear source for the connection between leaven and the inclination; then perhaps I would try to look for what it is based on and what it expresses. But if one begins the discussion with these homiletic interpretations and from them infers that there is a connection between leaven and the inclination, this connection seems to me highly dubious. By the same token I could also connect the sukkah to the evil inclination (it encloses us away from the world within our four walls, expresses betrayal of our home, disconnects us from the heavens, and so on), tefillin to clouds (after all, both point upward and express spirituality), and honoring parents to Australia (for just as our parents tower above us, so too Australia is distant from us. And in general we do not understand Aboriginal language either, just as we do not understand the reason for tefillin). Clearly, once we decide for some reason that there is a connection between two things, we can always find masses of homiletic interpretations that pour various and diverse ad hoc contents into that connection. Incidentally, such connections will always be trivial (that is, self-evident), for otherwise we would not accept them. After all, we have no constraint that tells us there really is such a connection, so why should we accept it if it were not something we already knew in advance? Therefore such connections always yield trivial conclusions (that is, conclusions we knew even without the connection).

Popper’s Criterion for Homily

In fact, I would try to propose here a criterion similar to Popper’s criterion for a scientific theory (which he made depend on falsifiability). Can the connection between leaven and the evil inclination predict something we would not have thought of without accepting that connection? In other words: can the claim about the connection be subjected to a test of refutation? After all, showing and explaining such a connection ad hoc is very easy (see the examples above). Popper teaches us that sometimes what matters more is to define what we would need to find in the sources (and where) in order to be convinced that there is no connection between leaven and the evil inclination. Is that even possible? Clearly, at the level of freedom and association used to ground and explain such homiletic connections, they are certainly not falsifiable (see the examples I gave above).

And What About the Sages?

What is confusing is that sometimes commentators manage to show, in an apparently persuasive way, that some Talmudic passage really did intend to connect leaven to the evil inclination.[2] The first question we should ask here is whether this is indeed a real basis, or merely evidence brought ad hoc (after we have assumed that such a connection exists). Could we not have proven other connections from that same passage? But beyond that, another question arises: even if we are convinced that the Sages really did intend such a connection, it is not clear from where the Sages themselves learned it. Did they have some basis for this connection? Divine inspiration? A tradition from Sinai? Unlikely. Is there a hint to it in the Torah? Even connections made by the Sages are not beyond criticism.

And from here, after I began to reflect on the connection between leaven and the evil inclination and had difficulty finding for it any anchor or reasonable basis, I began to think that perhaps the Sages are really presenting here nothing more than a homily. Perhaps they have a goal of exhorting us to fight the evil inclination, and they choose to express this through an associative and speculative connection to leaven. They do not really mean to say that this is what the prohibition of leaven comes to express.

But if this is indeed a homily, it is not clear how important or meaningful it is to enter into all the details of the aggadot and passages in order to show this connection and learn its significance. Perhaps the lesson is really only the obligation to struggle, or not to surrender, to the inclination, and the inference that leads to that conclusion does not truly stand on solid ground. As we have seen, that is the nature of homily in our own day as well. Would anyone think of beginning to examine the inference of a preacher at a sheva berakhot celebration, and analyze its validity, whether it is necessary, and whether it really follows from the sources he cited?

A priori, it is reasonable to assume that the sages of the Talmud behaved as the sages of our own generation do. Sometimes some sage spices up his moral or value-laden lesson with a charming homily that does not really purport to derive something seriously from the text on which it relies. It may be wordplay, numerology, or merely free analogies and associations. Of course, it is possible that the sages of the Talmud did indeed do this, but that the editors of the Talmud filtered it out and did not include homilies in it, but only serious and disciplined material. But is it impossible that this is not the case? Is it not possible that such homilies also entered the Talmud together with all the legal discussions, and together with the more serious and disciplined kind of homiletics? The Talmud is full of various odd materials (strange remedies, demons, and other nasty things), and I am not at all sure this assumption about its redaction is valid. I do not mean to say this about all the aggadot; I am only wondering whether some of them might not be of this kind. As every student knows, the structure of the Talmud is very associative and fairly free (I am not persuaded by structural arguments that try to explain the structure of the passage and why and how each section and each part was placed where it was). So why assume that homilies built on free association were not slipped in there as well?

An Example: What Do Esther and Sarah Have to Do with Each Other?

Take, for example, the aggadah brought in Esther Rabbah (1:8):

Rabbi Akiva was sitting and expounding, and the students became drowsy. He wanted to rouse them, so he said: By what merit did Esther reign over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces? Rather, thus said the Holy One, blessed be He: Let Esther, the daughter of Sarah, who lived one hundred and twenty-seven years, come and reign over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces.

The midrash states explicitly that this homily was said only in order to awaken the drowsy students. And yet that did not prevent many commentators from soaring off into profound interpretations of this comparison. Some of the interpretations are very interesting, and most of them are trivial (as noted above), but the important question is whether they are true. Or perhaps, once again, the a priori assumption that there is a connection yields results just as it would with any connection whatsoever.

Perhaps one may assume that this itself is what Rabbi Akiva was trying to do. He floated a connection between two things that are externally similar, and challenged the students to raise associations and possible “explanations” according to the best of their creative imagination. The goal was not to expose real explanations for a real connection, but to awaken them. As noted, he could have done the same with a connection between honoring parents and Australia. You can ask all the beanbag-learners in modern study halls, who take some aggadah or other, put it down before them, and soar off into interpretations of it along the lines of free association. The results can certainly be creative and interesting, even fascinating. And still the question remains whether those results are an interpretation of that aggadah, or simply a use of it as a source of inspiration (as they usually state explicitly: for them the Talmud is a source of inspiration, not a source of authority).

What Could Serve as a Basis for the Connection?

If we were to find in the Torah or in the Oral Tradition a source that links leaven to the evil inclination, there would be room to suggest various interpretations of that connection. In such a case, our standards regarding the validity of those proposals would not be very high. After all, the connection is known, and now we need only explain it. But if these explanations themselves are the source of the connection, I tend to regard them with some suspicion.

I did mention that the main connection between leaven and the inclination is found in kabbalistic sources. Such kabbalistic connections may be based on some mystical tradition or various revelations (for those who believe in such things), and then perhaps the connections there can be freer. When kabbalists say that there is a connection between leaven and the evil inclination, this may be rooted in a tradition, or in revelations or mystical experiences that are a possible source; and if it is justified to assume that there is such a connection, then the explanations, as noted, can be freer. But even if one accepts this with regard to mystical literature, in Hasidic literature it seems to me harder to view matters this way. It seems to me that, aside from committed Hasidim, most of us do not really believe that rebbes experienced revelations from Elijah the Prophet, or received private traditions unknown to the rest of us. They speak on the basis of the arguments and material available to all of us. So if the analogies and connections are persuasive—fine. But the very fact that some Hasidic book makes such a connection does not seem to me sufficient basis for adopting it.

The Vow of the Pnei Yehoshua

The Pnei Yehoshua is one of the greatest of the later commentators on the Talmud. What distinguishes him is that he never gives up on any tentative line of thought in the Talmudic text, in Rashi, or in Tosafot. He clarifies every stage of the passage down to the finest detail. Surprisingly, you will not find in him any treatment of the aggadic parts of the Talmud. He skips over them consistently. In his introduction to the book he explains this. There the Pnei Yehoshua recounts the disaster that struck him when an earthquake occurred in his city:

And one more thing: I had accepted upon myself as an obligation, and I vowed with a binding vow in my time of distress, on the day of the burning wrath of God, Tuesday, the 3rd of Kislev, in the year 363 according to the minor count, in the holy community of Lvov. I had been at ease in my home and flourishing in my halls, with colleagues and students listening to my voice, when suddenly the city was overturned into a heap in an instant. No hands had yet begun to act, and we heard no cry of terror, only the sound that the conflagration had broken out in one quarter. And the sight of the great blazing fire that rose in our palaces and windows, through several great and terrible barrels full of gunpowder for burning, until houses collapsed from their storehouses—many large and fortified houses, walls reaching to the heavens, were brought low to the dust, laid bare to their very foundations—and some thirty-six holy Jewish souls were killed. Among the slain were also the members of my household: this, my first wife of blessed memory, and her mother and her mother's father, until the calamity also reached my daughter, my little daughter, her mother's only one, and especially beloved to me. And I too was among the fallen, cast from a lofty roof into a deep pit, and I came into the depths of the mire in the lowest earth, truly as if inside a furnace, because of the crushing weight of the wave upon wave that fell on me and the beams of our house, more than the beams of an olive press. They gave me no rest to recover my breath; my hands and limbs were no longer under my control. I said: I am cut off in the midst of my days; I shall go, I have been deprived of the rest of my years; I shall no longer see any man among the inhabitants of the world. And I feared that my house would become my grave, one fitting for those stoned, burned, slain, and strangled; all four were upon me at once, and the law of the four death penalties had not ceased from me. Moreover, the beams of the house, its rafters, timbers, and stones seemed to me like fully qualified witnesses, and I said: perhaps they will strike me, so that the hand of the witnesses will be first upon me to put me to death. But in God's mercy upon me, God did not permit evil to befall me, and after about a third or a quarter of an hour, once the furious noise of the collapse had quieted and passed, though the swelling roar of the masses—thousands and tens of thousands—still surged onward, trampling upon the roof so that the earth seemed to split at their sound—and many whom they killed by their trampling even more than at first, though it could hardly have been otherwise, since their intention was to save and clear the rubble—in the end I had already passed from the certainty of mortal danger into doubt. Then I said, while still under the debris: If God will be with me and bring me out of this place in peace, and build for me a faithful house and enlarge my borders with students, I will not keep myself from the walls of the study hall, and I will diligently attend the gates of analysis in the Talmudic passages and the halakhic decisors, and lodge in the depths of Jewish law, even spending many nights on one subject. In this my soul longed to follow in the footsteps of my forefathers—namely, my mother's grandfather, the famous deceased gaon, Rabbi Joshua, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, whose name is within me, the head of the religious court and rosh yeshiva of the holy community of Krakow, who composed the book Magenei Shlomo to resolve the difficulties raised by Tosafot against Rashi, and to explain what Tosafot leaves in wonder. At that time we had not yet merited the light of that book, but from what our fathers told us, and from hearsay alone, my soul yearned to walk in his ways as well:

Before I had even finished speaking these words to my heart, the Lord heard the voice of my affliction and gave me a way through the pillars—an actual sort of path was made for me—and I went out in peace, unharmed, without a scratch. Then I knew with certainty that this was truly from the Lord, in a place where there is no rescue,From that time on, I took it to heart that the main focus of my study should be practical Jewish law in the Talmudic passages and the halakhic decisors, and that I should not commit to writing anything on homiletics or other studies that are far from the center of true learning, except on rare occasions.Only whenever I discovered some new insight in a Talmudic passage, or in Rashi or Tosafot, and it seemed to me to incline toward the path of true learning according to the way of our early sages and teachers—that I would choose and draw near to write in this book of records:

While still trapped beneath the ruins, after many members of his household had died, he vows not to engage in aggadah but only in Jewish law, since in aggadah one generally does not strive for the truth, and therefore does not hit upon it either.[3] It should be noted that the assumption here is the opposite of the one I proposed above. He assumes that aggadot are not homily, and that they have a serious and profound meaning. His claim is only that people who study aggadot do not invest serious effort in them, and the interpretations are mere witticisms (homily). In other words, the aggadot are not homily; our interpretations of them are. And indeed, in recent generations much effort has been invested in interpreting aggadot, and in a more systematic way as well (beginning in academia and continuing in yeshivot), and yet in many cases I still have the feeling that these are ad hoc proposals and interpretations that do not stand up to any objective test.[4]

So if a lion like the Pnei Yehoshua admits that, like many others, he does not strive for or does not reach the truth in the study of aggadah (except on rare occasions, “except on rare occasions”), what can lesser mortals say? When I see a broad and sweeping failure in some field, it prompts me to think that perhaps this is not a failure at all, or that it is a necessary failure.[5] Perhaps even the lions do not succeed when they come to interpret aggadot because there is simply nothing here in which to succeed. Perhaps the problem lies in the basic assumption (that there is any serious interpretation at all), and not in the seriousness and method of the learners. Again, I do not necessarily mean this about all aggadot (for nowadays there really are more serious and more successful attempts to interpret aggadot), but it may be that some aggadot truly have no serious interpretation, because they are homily and not serious study. If so, it is no wonder that people do not find a disciplined and systematic interpretation for them. In many cases, even in places where I am impressed that the interpretation of a given aggadah is more serious and disciplined, there is still a sense that this is an ad hoc interpretation (as can be done with any connection between two things, or with any story), and not truly an interpretation that can stand up to serious critical scrutiny.

Incidentally, this thesis can be put to an empirical test (once we thought of doing such a test with modern, or postmodern, art). One could give experts in aggadic literature fabricated aggadot and have them interpret them and offer a systematic and serious analysis. I believe that in many cases you would see beautiful interpretations of these “aggadot,” and it would be difficult to distinguish them from genuine aggadot from the Talmud.[6]

What Is Study: Between Poetry and Prose

I assume that at this point the obvious question arises: why are such associations not study? Perhaps aggadah really was meant to be interpreted precisely in this way? Many people will tell you that aggadah is like poetry, whereas Jewish law is like prose. Poems must be interpreted as poetry, whereas prose is interpreted as prose. If so, even if I am right, does this diminish the value of studying aggadah? Is an associative interpretation not truth? Particularly if we adopt the deconstructionist thesis according to which the interpretation of a work is the impression it leaves on the reader (and not the creator’s intention), then that is exactly what is happening here.

I personally reject deconstruction entirely, and I will not go into that here. Here I will only say that if one adopts it, one can study in the same way any fiction, any event, and any object we encounter. Any telephone pole can arouse fascinating associations in us. So what is the difference between it and a Talmudic aggadah? After all, the impression aroused in me is not connected to the author’s intention, so in what sense is this Torah? Why is the inspiration aroused in me by a Talmudic aggadah essentially different from the inspiration aroused in me by a work of art, a person, or a cat passing by me on the street, or by the weather?

Study is the striving to understand the source being studied. In that sense, free associations cannot be considered study. One may of course refer to them as study, but that is merely an equivocation. If one grants this the value of Torah study, I do not see why an interesting impression from a telephone pole should not qualify as Torah study as well.

Such impressions and associations can of course be very important. The analogy between leaven and the evil inclination may help people in coping with the evil inclination or in understanding how it operates (it does not really help me, the Litvak that I am. But nobody is perfect). And yet, at most we have here an activity of value, a means to achieve a worthy goal, but not Torah study. Torah study is an attempt to understand the Torah and its contents in a systematic and critical way. When one studies a text, the goal is to learn its content and understand it, not to be impressed by it in a free way. Free impression is not study of the text, but at most personal work and self-discovery. The result of study must stand up to a test of plausibility if we are to assume that we have indeed reached the desired result. It is difficult to regard the mere kneading of a text in order to extract from it whatever our heart desires as Torah study. And again, we must not confuse the bottom line with the inference. The bottom line can be correct and even valuable, but for study to be study and not mere homily, the inference and the details are important as well. Study is not merely arriving at a correct bottom line (and especially not at such a conclusion that was already clear to all of us in advance), but at least anchoring it in the sources being studied; and preferably this study should also have novel conclusions that were not understood and known in advance.

And in Conclusion: So What, After All, Is the Basis of the Prohibition of Leaven?

Well then, if leaven is not a symbol or expression of the evil inclination, what can be said about the basis of the prohibition of leaven? I think that on this question there is no need to resort to homilies. The Torah itself tells us (Exodus 13:3):

And Moses said to the people: Remember this day on which you went out from Egypt, from the house of bondage, for with a mighty hand the Lord brought you out from here, and no leavened food shall be eaten.

And so too here (Exodus 13:6-8):

Seven days you shall eat matzot, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to the Lord. Matzot shall be eaten throughout the seven days, and no leavened food shall be seen in your possession, nor shall leaven be seen in your possession, throughout all your borders. And you shall tell your son on that day, saying: It is because of this that the Lord acted for me when I went out of Egypt.

The prohibition of leaven and the obligation to eat matzah are part of the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. Our ancestors left Egypt and did not eat leaven, but only matzot, because their dough did not have time to rise. Therefore we too are commanded for all generations to remember the Exodus from Egypt, both in recounting what happened to us there and in the prohibition of leaven and the commandment of matzah. This is the plain straightforward meaning, and I see no need or value in all the homilies about the evil inclination and the like. The prohibitions on deriving benefit from leaven, eating it, and having it in one’s possession are all a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt, and not because of some duty to chase after the inclination and rummage through the crevices of the heart.

All that remains for me is to refer the reader to my article here, in which I show these matters using purely halakhic tools. It seems to me that although the interpretation is novel (legally speaking. Conceptually it is trivial and of course anchored in the plain sense of Scripture), it is difficult to say that this is homily. To the best of my judgment, the arguments are systematic and disciplined. Let the reader read and judge.

A further methodological conclusion can be drawn from this. A systematic anchoring of the conceptual conclusion in the details of Jewish law can certainly strengthen it. Thus the more systematic halakhic method can contribute to strengthening the looser aggadic method. A kosher and happy holiday to us all.

[1] See, for example, the Zohar, parashat Bo, sec. 178, and more.

[2] Rabbi Yaakov Nagen’s article cited above is an example of analysis that is better than the conventional homiletics. I suggest that the reader go through it, and then consider how persuasive the arguments there really are. I tend to think they are not. To the best of my judgment, these are ad hoc arguments that could have grounded almost any connection one might want, as I described above. He essentially assumes the connection between leaven and the inclination rather than proving it. As noted, once we equip ourselves with such an assumption, we can always “prove” it with signs and wonders from the structure of the passage, by comparing the meanings of expressions and words, and the like.

[3] I seem to recall that I once read a similar story about Rabbi Shlomo Cohen.

[4] I assume that some readers will say here that this is also the case in Jewish law and in Talmudic analysis. My feeling is different. There are, of course, speculative proposals in the analytical halakhic context as well, and yet the feeling is that there the method is more systematic, controlled, and grounded (cf. Pnei Yehoshua).

[5] See, for example, column 27 on the allusions of Elul.

[6] By the way, I would add that one can do something similar with fabricated halakhic passages as well, and with a certain measure of success (cf. the forgery of the responsa collection Besamim Rosh and of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim), but it seems to me that the situation there would be different in several respects. The fact is that those works were ultimately recognized as forgeries, and not only on grounds of sources and textual version, but also on grounds of content. I find it difficult to imagine a similar determination regarding an aggadic text (that is, a determination that it is a forgery because of its content and not because of philology, history, and manuscript witnesses). I will not go into that here.