Q&A: Is It Worth Investing Time in Studying the Aggadic Passages in Berakhot?
Is It Worth Investing Time in Studying the Aggadic Passages in Berakhot?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
We’re going to study tractate Berakhot during the summer term in yeshiva.
I’ve started learning the tractate broadly for now, and I see that it’s full of aggadic passages. Just reading them in this broad survey style, I don’t feel I’m managing to get very much out of them. I know that on the one hand the Rabbi says that studying aggadic passages is a waste of time and that it’s better to invest yeshiva time in Talmud and Jewish law, but on the other hand I feel that this way I’m missing a large part of the tractate.
I thought maybe to learn a bit of Ein Ayah on the aggadic passages so that studying them would be more meaningful; I saw that the Rabbi also gave classes on this in the past. Is that a good idea or a waste of time? More generally, how should one study the aggadic passages in the tractate, and how much should be invested in them?
Answer
I don’t understand the problem. You write that you’re missing a large part of the tractate. But if you aren’t getting anything out of it, then what’s bad about that? In my view, it’s quite a waste of time. Once you have a developed framework of insights, ideas, and a conceptual outlook, you can come to the aggadic passages and they may enrich you a bit (though not all that much). But studying them for their own sake does not seem especially beneficial to me. Especially if you’re at an early stage (a yeshiva student), it’s better to focus on conceptual Talmudic analysis in depth. That requires effort, guidance, and time.
For the questioner’s attention: the aggadic passages in tractate Berakhot are different from the aggadic passages elsewhere in the Talmud, because many details of Jewish law are learned from the aggadic passages in Berakhot, and many of them are derived from close readings of the stories. See Beit Yosef in the laws of the recitation of Shema, prayer, and the synagogue.