[Avodah] History

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 11:04:19PM -0500, hlampel at koshernet.com wrote:
: Of course, you can insist that every time a rishon
: cites an Aggadta he has in mind an unspoken underlying understanding
: that it is not meant historicall..

No, I'm talking about rishonim and acharonim who (primarily in haqdamos)
wrote that in this case or that, and we're talking wide sweeping rules
like "fantastical claims", one should assume the medeash is ahistoric.
And the explanation given is that it's because Chazal didn't repeat the
story for the story, but they were speaking in meshalim.

That last concept is where I get that no medrash was repeated because
it was historical fact. The explanation for why it's mutar to make such
statements tells you that the mashal is only taught for its nimshal.
Even in the cases where the mashal was lemaaseh taken from history.


My notion wasn't that none of them are historical; but that caring
is simply off topic for Torah study. Studying history is Chokhmas
Yisrael. Valuable, but a different thing. Studying science as a way to
advance our ability to enhance lives, or to know the mind of the Creator,
or... is valuable as well. Studying the lessons taken taken from history
or [other?] myth or from science [accurate or discarded theories] so as
to advance our our AYH is talmud Torah.

Which is how rishonim can take liberties deciding which midrashim are
too fantastical for them to believe historically.

...
: Some specific examples of
: literally-taken biographical/historical Aggados that come to mind:
: The conflicting Aggados about what age Avraham was when he discovered Hashem.

Why would a treatment of the mashal to fully understand it before
proceding to the nimshal (how to develop one's own emunah) touch the
question of historicity? Wouldn't the need to explain the meshalim be
equal either way?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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