[Avodah] napoleon ma'aseh: legend?

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 08:13:54AM -0700, Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org wrote to
Areivim:
: http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-napoleon-tisha-bav-legend-tracing-it.html 
: 
: i don't know if this is better on avodah...

This reply does, so I'm moving it here.

: if the napoleon story [like the Golem] is made up, does it matter after
: after it has been incorporated in countless drashos over the years?

Li nir'eh that for the purpose of talmud Torah, the fact that this is
what Jews over the generations were willing and capable of believing,
and considered important enough to incorporate into divrei Torah is more
relevent than history.

This fits both with what I said in the past about chazal's attitude toward
aggadic stories (that caring about historicity is itself a non-mesoretic
attitude), and with what I've written about halachic process being more
about how an opinion is developed down the generations than what the
baal mesorah originally intended. So, at least I am consistent.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
micha at aishdas.org        Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
http://www.aishdas.org   beyond measure
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Anonymous