Q&A: Aggadic Sayings of the Sages
Aggadic Sayings of the Sages
Question
Your view regarding the benefit of studying aggadic passages and midrashim is well known. Why, in your opinion, did the Sages write these texts if it is impossible to derive anything from them? This is not an objection, just a question.
Answer
I have no idea. In the past, people raised arguments like this against my position, but those arguments are irrelevant. My claim is factual: I do not see how one can learn anything from them. So even if that leads to a difficulty, that is still the fact—unless someone shows me that something can in fact be learned from them.
I suspect these are basically little sermonic quips of the sort heard nowadays in synagogues and at events, except that among the Sages they entered the Talmud and acquired an aura of sanctity.
Discussion on Answer
Apparently back then he was captive to the Haredi approach, which thinks that everything written in the Talmud was given from the mouth of the Almighty.
The Hatam Sofer wrote about aggadic passages that they are the drawn-out joking the Talmud mentions before the learning begins.
Yaron Yadan deals with this a lot; it is hard not to accept at least some of his criticism.
In the responsa of the Rashba it was already made clear that most aggadic statements are in the mode of the esoteric, and the benefit learned from them is how to serve God—and all the books of the medieval authorities, such as Duties of the Heart, and the Torah commentators are full of aggadic sayings of the Sages as guidance for life. For example, the aggadic passage at the end of the first chapter of Bava Batra regarding Job's sufferings and his claims teaches a great deal about faith and free choice; the story of Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish teaches about the concept of a study partner, and this is not the place to elaborate.
And what is not understood has an explanation in terms of the inner dimension, such as in the Maharal or the explanations of the Vilna Gaon.
So this is not a “Haredi approach” but a Jewish approach throughout the generations,
How is it possible that once you admired Rabbi Meir Shapira and his teachings on these statements of the Sages, and argued forcefully (on your blog) against anyone who claimed it was nothing more than acrobatics—and now you think these are hollow little quips. Quite astonishing.