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

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 10:49:53AM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
> Of course not *all* medrashim *need* to be taken literally.  But clearly
> many of them *are* meant literally...

All are meant allegorically. Even if they describe literal history,
Chazal weren't historians. Chazal didn't care which were historical
and which not. The science of history that we have today wasn't invented
yet; people didn't develop an interest in that distinction yet.

The story wouldn't be retold if it didn't have a message. ("Myth" in the
technical sense of the word, as I was taught in previous iterations. Not
useful, since "myth" as commonly used has the wrong connotations. Like
"Im tirtzu, ein zot agadah!")

So, we have stories that have metaphoric meaning, some of which are
historical, some not, and we have no tool for knowing which is which.
You therefore can't cite a medrash as proof of what happened, because
maybe it's one of those that didn't.

> Does anyone doubt, for instance, that Nimrod really did throw Avraham
> Avinu into a fire?  Or that the Aron carried its bearers over the Yarden?

I can answer "yes" to both questions;, I am not sure of either the literal
historicity of the kivshan and of whether the aron carried its bearers.

I would also say that caring whether or not they occured is itself a
break from how chazal viewed midrashic stories.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Every second is a totally new world,
micha at aishdas.org        and no moment is like any other.
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