[Avodah] history

[T613K at aol.com]

RMM writes:
>>I believe one of RSG's Hirhurim blogs compared  Avraham's keeping the
613, to a mural he (RSG) once saw of the Levi'im  singing in the Beit
haMikdash wearing streimels and kaftans- how do you show  a little
Chassidic boy that the avot were good frum Jews? They wore  streimels!
And so how do we know Avraham was a good Jew? He was so good that  he
kept the Torah before G-d even told him!

It's evidently very  possible that it is anachronistic and was never
intended to be anything  but.

Now, I wonder, to what extent did Chazal realize when they were  being
anachronistic? Is that they didn't care about historical accuracy,  but
nevertheless knew when they were being anachronistic, or did  they
genuinely lack a real historical sense b'klal? Now, since  ancient
people in general were less historically critical than we  are
nowadays, my question boils down to : given Chazal had less  critical
historical sense than we do, to what qualitative sense was this  the
case, between 0 and 100 percent of  ours.<<






>>>>>
I didn't see that particular blog of RGS's but I totally reject the  premise 
that Avraham didn't really keep the Torah at all and that Chazal "of  course" 
were being anachronistic when they said he did.  I therefore also  reject your 
question -- "Did they know they were being anachronistic and went  ahead and 
told us stories anyway, or were they so ignorant, as all ancient  peoples 
were, that they had no idea of historical chronology?"  
 
I believe that when the Torah was given on Har Sinai it included many  laws 
that were already being kept by the ancient Hebrews -- the descendants of  
Avraham Avinu.  I believe that the Avos actually did keep the Torah -- not  in all 
its details and certainly not the derabbanans. but they kept basic  
d'Oraisas.  They rested on Shabbos, didn't eat pork or milk with meat, ate  matza on 
Pesach.  Admittedly they didn't have the mechanism for determining  dates and 
Rosh Chodesh that came along later, but somehow or other they did have  months 
and dates.  In the time of Noach we see already that there are  months and 
dates.
 
You write that "ancient people in general were less historically  critical" 
thus seeming to lump Chazal in with those uncritical, naive ancient  people to 
whom we moderns naturally feel quite superior.  We are oh so much  more 
intellectually sophisticated than those ancient people.
 
This is not at all the proper way to look at Chazal. 
 
Now I am not one of those who take every midrash literally -- and that's  
because I don't believe they were all /meant/ to be taken literally.  I  think 
that people who read Chazal literally in each and every instance are being  a 
bit naive and are actually making Chazal smaller than they were.
 
In certain cases, Chazal make statements about medicine and science that  we 
now know to be inaccurate, but in my view Chazal never claimed that every  
such statement was part of Torah in the sense of "handed down on Sinai."  I  
understand such statements to show that Chazal took a very positive attitude  
toward the acquisition of the best of contemporary knowledge -- "Chachma bagoyim  
ta'amin."
 
But we must never "cut Chazal down to size" by assuming that they were  just 
regular people, no smarter than us, that they were primitive, childlike,  
superstitious and naive in their way of viewing the world.   That is  the 
Conservative, not the Orthodox, way of analyzing the teachings of  Chazal.
 
Now after all this, some people might still want to make a case  that Avraham 
Avinu didn't "really," literally, keep the Torah.  They  would then want to 
create some plausible lesson or paradigm that Chazal tried to  impart when they 
said he did.  ("He kept moral laws" or "He worshipped one  G-d" or I don't 
know what.)   My understanding is that they did mean  it literally and that 
Avraham did keep at least some of the laws, which he knew  about prophetically.    
But even those who want to come to  some non-literal understanding must not 
speak condescendingly  about Chazal.  We are all whippersnappers in comparison 
to them.  
 
Our religion depends on our accepting the authority of  Chazal.   
 

--Toby  Katz
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