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

[Lisa Liel]

At 09:49 AM 6/23/2011, Zev Sero wrote:
>On 23/06/2011 9:15 AM, Prof. Levine wrote:
>>Midrashim need not be taken literally.
>
>Of course not *all* medrashim *need* to be taken literally.  But clearly
>many of them *are* meant literally, and certainly one who refuses ever
>to believe the literal meaning of a medrash is a kofer in the whole torah.
>Does anyone doubt, for instance, that Nimrod really did throw Avraham
>Avinu into a fire?

I have no idea if Nimrod did any such thing.  Maybe, but I wouldn't 
base anything on it, since it's a midrash.

>Or that the Aron carried its bearers over the Yarden?

Ditto.  Maybe it did, and maybe it didn't.  Maybe it did metaphorically.

>Can one imagine a frum Jew who refuses to believe these stories, 
>merely because they appear in midroshim?

Um... yes.

>And really, why would anyone doubt these things?

Pirkei Avot mentions 10 things that were created erev shabbat bein 
hashemashot.  All of them are miracles that don't fit in 
nature.  Short of a literal statement in Tanakh, I assume this means 
that everything else God does in the world is derekh ha-teva.

>I understand doubting that the Rabba Bar Bar Chana stories really
>happened as described; I think very few people believe they did.  But since
>when does that mean that there is a general rule that all midrashim are
>literally false?  How did it come about that there are people with such a
>krum philosophy?  What sort of yiddishkeit is that?  No one story in a
>medrash is an ikkar in emunah; but that the body of medrash should be
>suspect, and treated as fairy tales?!  Who ever heard of such a thing?

God forbid.  Non-literal != fairy tale.  You're setting up a false 
dichotomy.  I'd go further than you have and say that every midrash 
is true.  Every single one, without exception.  But true != literal.

Lisa