Q&A: Study
Study
Question
You say that the indication that you are really studying something (study, not just learning) is when sometimes you think X and the text tells you Y, and you adopt Y. Therefore, in aggadic literature, where you never change your mind but instead force the aggadah or look for another aggadah, that is not called study. But in a case where I do not think anything—I think neither X nor Y—and now I learn X (or Y) through the aggadah (something that happens to me several times), is that called study?
Answer
The situation in which the interpretation of an aggadah leads to a conclusion that contradicts your position is only an indication that aggadah does not teach. The same is true when you have no position.
Think of a situation where you have no position and you see some conclusion, X, in an aggadah. If you adopt that conclusion only because it appears in an aggadah, then ostensibly you have learned something. But still, notice a few points: 1. Such a situation simply does not happen. 2. Interpretations of aggadah are so flexible that this interpretation cannot be a sufficient reason to adopt the conclusion. 3. Even if there is a clear interpretation, aggadah has no authority, and therefore there is no necessity to adopt that conclusion. If you decide to adopt it, that is your own decision. So it is doubtful to what extent this is called study. However, in such a case one can say that you learned what the sage who authored the aggadah thought about the question.