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Aspaqlaria

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Aggadic Stories, History and Halakhah

Posted: 23 Apr 2009 04:58 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/zkUt4l0yAwM/aggadic-stories-history-and-halakhah.shtml


Someone raised on Avodah the following question (see the posts listed here  
under two different subject lines, Kinyan on Shabbos?? and Kinyan on  
Shabbos? (Har Sinai) ). The first Shavuos was on a Shabbos. Didnt we  
acquire the Torah  doesnt this imply a qinyan on Shabbos  which is  
prohibited? What about our being made avadim, servants, of the Almighty?  
And the event is compared to a wedding, which we dont perform on Shabbos.

I answered on-list on a technical level  a qinyan is allowed on Shabbos if  
its for the sake of a mitzvah or according to others for the sake of  
Shabbos. And what could be more for the sake of Shabbos than giving us the  
covenant that includes Shabbos? (It was previously commanded at Marah, but  
its the version given at Horeb that is binding today.) The Rama famously  
performed a wedding that was scheduled for Friday but ran late into  
Shabbos. (There were extreme circumstances, but still, he permitted it.) Etc

However, I think there is a meta-issue that is more significant to discuss,  
and therefore Im elaborating on the Avodah post where I raised that issue  
here.

The comparison of matan Torah to a qinyan, a wedding or avdus isnt  
necessarily halachic. It is more reasonable to think its on an aggadic  
level, and this whole question doesnt really begin.

Also, given my attitude toward the historical accuracy of aggadita, I  
wouldnt assume that placing Matan Torah on Shabbos is a historical claim.  
Nor would I assume it isnt. The point is to provide a, not a study of  
history. History and legend were blindly mixed because the question is just  
off topic to talmud Torah.

This is actually easier to support mesoretically than assuming that these  
narratives were intended as historical assertions (in addition to their  
metaphor). See R Daniel Eidensohns Daas Torah. Despite what is presented as  
the frum answer today, this is the position of R Saadia Gaon, the Rambam,  
his son R Avraham, the Maharsha, the Maharal, the Vilna Gaon, R Hirsch, R  
Yisrael Salanter, etc Because someone might be surprised that this is the  
actual normative traditional attitude toward aggadita, Ill give two sources  
that I already had on-hand.

The first I posted recently. With respect to aggadic stories, the Rambam  
(introduction to his commentary to chapter Cheileq in Sanhedrin, a little  
before his list of the 13 articles of faith, identifies three categories of  
people, two wrong camps, and one right one. The erroneous approaches are:  
(1) Those who take all the fantastical claims of the stories as literal,  
find them absurd, and ridicule the Torah for it; and (2) Those who take  
them as literal, take them seriously, and therefore believe in an absurd  
distortion of the Torah. The correct approach is (3) to realize that the  
Torah convey deeper truths via hint and riddle. (Which he laments is a  
class of students of the Torah that is small and far between, a class in  
the sense that the sun is in the class of all suns.)

And from Rav Yisrael Salanter:

We are living now in the period following the German conquest of several  
districts of France. The German Kaiser has now become the mighty sovereign  
of many isolated provinces, which he has united into one mighty state. In  
order to immortalize its victory, the German government changed the  
appearance of the eagle in its national emblem, making it two-headed  
instead of one-headed (as it was until now). Historians, writers and poets  
praise the conquest with exaggerated descriptions. I myself have read the  
lines, The German eagle has spread its wings from Memel to Metz. One of its  
claws grips Koeln, while the other is in Baden. Instead of detailed and  
realistic descriptions of international wars, what they record for  
posterity are symbols and hints that are only well understood by the  
generation in which the events occurred.

With the changes of time, memory of the events will fade, and all that will  
remain will be the terse symbolic account. A long time from now, people  
will read that in German a two-headed eagle spread its wings for 500 miles.  
Perhaps they will laugh at this, just as they laugh at [the stories in] the  
aggada.

The same thing happened to us. Chazal used terse symbolic language to  
describe the events of and before their time, and they recorded the Torahs  
wisdom and mussar in epigrams. These sayings were only understood by the  
people of their generations, and by mequbalim of later generations.

The notion that the forefathers observed the entire Torah, even Rabbinic  
rulings, is also an aggadic story, and is no more likely or not to be  
historical. But its not even made about the generation in question.

ALL THAT SAID, it seems to be the rules of aggadic stories, even the ones  
that arent historical, that they do not have any of the good guys doing  
something we wouldnt. And so we still find commentaries trying to justify  
things on a halachic basis. This shouldnt be taken to mean they assumed the  
events actually occurred!

Which was the thing I was trying to do here. I dont think there is any  
reason to believe there actually was a qinyan of any sort done on Shabbos  
as part of Matan Torah. Still, because Chazal use that metaphoric language,  
it must be able to work halachically  or else they would have chosen  
different metaphors.



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Of Qorbanos and Flowers

Posted: 23 Apr 2009 03:56 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/7zrZWMAcXqY/of-qorbanos-and-flowers.shtml


Im curious to know how many of us who believe were supposed to want a  
restoration of the sacrifices actually anticipate it. I must confess that  
Im too 21st cent for that, and generally during Mussaf or Qorbanos (or  
parts of the liturgy that discuss sacrifices) my thought is asking G-d to  
help me learn how to want them, to realize what Im missing on an emotional  
level.

On an intellectual level, I think of it in terms of a parallel to buying my  
wife flowers. She doesnt need the flowers. Most of the time, she never even  
looks at the flowers, and doesnt even notice them at the Shabbos table  
except when they get in the way of seeing someone. (Of course, other wives  
could well appreciate their beauty more, but I think the next point still  
stands.)

Giving my wife flowers isnt about the flowers, but about the giving. Human  
beings in a relationship have a need to give. And we feel more appreciated  
and loved when we see someone make the effort to give. While we all like  
our toys, and its not only the thought that counts (in real, non-idealized  
people), the thought is much of the gift.

We also like to share meals with those we love. There is something very  
primal about breaking bread together.

Look how the Torah describes sacrifices. They arent first commanded. Qayin  
and Hevel naturally come up with them. Noach is overcome by gratitude (and  
perhaps a hefty load of survivor guilt, which would explain his desire to  
lose himself in wine) and makes an offering, etc The laws of qorbanos dont  
come with a claim that they are the invention the notion of offering  
something to G-d. Rather, they channel and embellish a natural inclination.

If we were feeling an equally deep emotional attachment to G-d, we would  
also feel this need to give. Not only meaningful gifts, but also gestures  
as gestures. It is only when the gesture is used instead of the meaningful  
gift, when we offered sacrifices in an attempt to keep G-d happy while we  
took advantage of the poor, the widow and the orphan, that G-d put an end  
to them. A bunch of roses wont wallpaper over having an affair. Instead it  
would increase a wifes anger at her husbands transparent attempt to  
manipulate her. Is this not the metaphor of Hoshea who is told to marry a  
prostitute (either in reality or within the prophetic vision)  כִּי-זָנֹה  
תִזְנֶה הָאָרֶץ, מֵאַחֲרֵי ה  because the land is prostituting itself from  
after G-d. (Hoshea 1:2)  As Hashem tells Yeshaiah, לֹא תוֹסִיפוּ, הָבִיא  
מִנְחַת-שָׁוְאקְטֹרֶת תּוֹעֵבָה הִיא, לִי; חֹדֶשׁ וְשַׁבָּת קְרֹא מִקְרָא,  
לֹא-אוּכַל אָוֶן וַעֲצָרָה.  Do not conitnue to bring me empty  
bread-offerings, incense of disgust it is do Me, the new month, Shabbos and  
the calling of the holidays  I can no longer stand it alongside the sin and  
iniquity! (Yeshaiah 1:13)

For the Torah to tell us to curtail that need to make gestures of  
affection, to give gifts just for the sake of giving and to share a meal  
(as much as possible) would be to force an artificiality and lack of  
authenticity on the notion of loving G-d. Instead, Vayiqra layers more  
meaning atop the basic primal notion.

As I said at the top, standing here after two millenia of exile, I no  
longer feel driven by a need to give to Him. There is something incomplete  
in my ahavas Hashem, love of G-d. I thank him though that He brought me to  
the point that I at least feel sad over that incompletion.



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