[Avodah] Taking Midrashim Literally (was Consumer Alert: Minhog Scams On The Rise!)

[Prof. Levine]

At 08:50 PM 6/22/2011, Lisa Liel wrote in response to R. Zev Sero


>ZS: >Excuse me?  Why do you think we say Baruch Shem?  Because Moshe
> >heard the mal'achim say it.
>
>LL: That's Midrash.  What's your source for that actually being the reason?
>
>ZS: >Why do we say Baruch She'amar?  Because it was on a piece of paper
> >that fell from heaven.
>
>LL: A piece of paper that fell from heaven.  I'm not even sure how to
>respond to that.  I don't think we get our liturgy from pieces of
>paper that fall from heaven.
>
>ZS: >Why do we start saying at least the first word of the part of
> >kaddish after "Yehei Shmeih Rabba"?  Because Eliyahu told an amora
> >to say it.  How did Moshe know that the ketores can prevent a
> >plague?  Because the Malach Hamaves told him so.
>
>LL: That's Midrash.  What's your source for that actually being the reason?

Midrashim need not be taken literally.  See

<http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/hirsch.pdf>Rav 
Shamshon Raphael Hirsch on Aggadita I (from R. N. Slifkin's web site)

<http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/hirschAgadaHebrew_ll.pdf>Rav 
Shamshon Raphael Hirsch on Aggadita II (Original Hebrew article from Hama'ayan)

<http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/rsrh/hirschAgadaEnglish.pdf>Rav 
Shamshon Raphael Hirsch on Aggadita III 
(Translation as it first appeared in Light Magazine)

Let me add to this the following which is from 
The Musar Movement by Rabbi Dov Katz (English 
translation) Volume 1, Part 1 footnote 2, pages 
301-302. (This is a biography of Reb Yisroel Salanter.

          2.   See S. Mark, op. cit., pp. 88­90. The author also relates that
            Prof. Hermann Helmholtz, the famous philosopher and scientist,
            evinced an interest in meeting R. 
Israel, and an animated
           conversation took place between the two of them. Helmholtz seized
           the opportunity to express his surprise that the Talmud, which is
           built on such solid and logical foundations should have given
           space to such legends which sound like fanatical and outlandish
           fantasies, such as the stories of Rabbah bar bar Chana, which
           tell of a bird standing in the sea, with the water reaching up to
           its feet, and its head to heaven (Baba Batra 73b). R. Israel
           answered by using an analogy: They were living in 1871, after
           Germany had won its great victory over France. The King of
           Prussia had been crowned Kaiser of all Germany. His emblem
           was an eagle. Previously it had been one-headed; now it had
           become two-headed. Hundreds of poets 
and authors had celebrated
           the event in diverse forms. He himself had read a poem in
           which the author had given a description of the glory of modern
           Germany in these terms: The great German eagle had one head
           reaching out to Memel and the other to Metz; its one wing tip
           touched Kiel and the other Badensee. They knew the reference.
          The poet had described how far German territory now extended
          in all four directions. Now, the professor could imagine to
          himself that 600 years hence ­ when no one would remember
          how Germany had been fragmentized in principalities and the
          metaphoric description of the rise of the monarchy ­ someone
          would find a story of a two-headed eagle with wings extending some
          300 miles in some library. Would he not express the same opinion
          as the professor had on the stories of Rabbah bar bar Chana?
          Obviously, just as they understood the import of the two-headed
          eagle, so did the people of those times understand the
          implications of those stories, which were certainly richer in content
          than the mere description of an eagle. It was because the present
          was so far removed from that epoch that the description seemed
          so absurd to them. Similar approaches had to be adopted towards
          the other Aggadot of the Talmud as 
well. The reply is characteristic
          for R. Israel, and shows his rationalistic bent.

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