[Avodah] Historicity of Aggadta

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Jan 01, 2018 at 09:55:13PM -0500, H Lampel via Avodah wrote:
: Fortunately, there is a parallel passage in the Rambam's Hakdama 
: L'Payrush HaMishna that eliminates the mistake that he means that /all 
: the words of the sages/ are really intended only to convey lofty 
: matters. There he phrases the thought:
: 
:     V-al inyan zo ramaz Shlomo b-amro (Mishlei 1:6) "lehavin mashal
:     umelitza, divrei chachamim vechidasam." Umachmas seebos eilu kav-u
:     haChachamim a"h /ess divreihem be-inyanim elokiyim/ beramazim.
: 
:     And to this idea Shlomo hinted/indicated by saying (Mishlei1:6) "to
:     understand mashal and melitza, the words of wise men and their
:     chiddos." And for these reasons (to hide lofty teachings from the
:     undeserving, and to provide material for children and women to
:     develop as their minds mature) the sages, a"h, established their
:     words /concerning inyanim elokiyyim/ [not "all their words"--ZL]
:     through remazim.
: 
: What kind of remazim? The Rambam there elaborates and explains further: 
: /Lofty concepts/ are too precious to be shared with everyone...

IOW, every story that is a remez encapsulates some inuanim elokiyim.

Which for all we know could be every aggadic story. There is no reason
to insist one way or the other for any story.

Yes, the Rambam personally concluded that some stories, eg one version
of Avraham's biography, or the story of dor Enosh, ought to be taken
literally. But not because of any general rule about stories that don't
violate nature or reason. Because they have enough value as-is for the
Rambam to believe they were told for a valuable historical lesson.

Limiting the set of nimshalim says nothing about the set of meshalim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Good decisions come from experience;
micha at aishdas.org        Experience comes from bad decisions.
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