Halakha and Aggada
Understanding Aggada
Yeshivat Har Etzion
Shiur 23a - Halakha and
Aggada
By Rav Yitzchak Blau
Rav Ami and Rav Asi were
sitting in front of Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha. One said to him: "Let the master teach
Halakha;" the other said to him: "Let the master teach Aggada." He started to teach Aggada and one
student did not let him proceed; he started to teach Halakha and the other
student did not let him proceed.
He said to them: "I will
give you a parable for comparison to this matter: a man had two wives, one older
and one younger. Since the younger wife plucked out his white hairs, and the
older wife plucked out his black hairs, the two of them made him bald.
"That being the case, I
will teach something that will please both of you. 'If a fire goes out and finds thorns'
(Shemot 22:6) even though the fire goes out on its own, the person who kindled
the fire must nevertheless pay. So,
The Holy One, Blessed be He, says: 'I must pay for the fire that I kindled. I
lit a fire in Zion, as it says: "He kindled a fire in Zion and it consumed the
foundations" (Eikha 4:11); I will, in the future, rebuild it with fire as it
says: "And I will be for her
a surrounding wall of fire, and I will be the
glory in her midst."' The halakhic
part is as follows: Scripture begins with damages caused by a person's property
and then concludes with damages caused by the person himself; this teaches that
one's fire is considered like one's arrow."
(Bava Kama
60b)
The teacher, Rabbi
Yitzchak Nappacha, is stymied by a voting deadlock: one student insists on
hearing Halakha, matters of Jewish law; the other student demands Aggada, the
stories and maxims of a nonlegal nature. After stating his parable, Rabbi Yitzchak
offers a compromise, his reading of a verse that incorporates both halakhic and
aggadic material. Let us focus on
the parable: is this just a striking image to chide his students lightly, or is
there a deeper correspondence between the mashal (parable) and
nimshal (moral)?
Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov
Weinberg offers a fantastic reading of this story in his Li-frakim (p.
333). He begins by contrasting the qualities of Halakha and Aggada. The former represents tradition and
consistency: Jews today practice the same daily rituals that our ancestors have
been observing for centuries; these rituals provide the bedrock of stability
upon which to build our Jewish lives.
Aggada, on the other hand, represents freshness and fiery enthusiasm;
while Judaism does have a set of concrete, unchanging beliefs, its philosophical
expression often employs the idiom of the time to convey Jewish ideals. Thus, Aggada will frequently allow for
novelty in a way that Halakha does not.
Furthermore, aggadic discussions often inspire youthful enthusiasm in a
way that halakha does not.
The older woman
represents Halakha, as she insists on the consistency and stability of
tradition, the white hairs. The younger woman represents Aggada, as she
champions the black hairs, the freshness and vitality of new insights as well as
the inner soul of observance. Rabbi
Yitzchak explains to his students that each one has adopted an inappropriately
narrow view of Torah. Lacking
Halakha, we will not have the solid foundation upon which to build a Jewish
life; the grand ideas of Aggada could not be translated into concrete
practice. Conversely, bereft of
Aggada, Halakha would remain dry, soulless and lacking
energy.
The closing verse of
Rabbi Yitzchak Nappacha's parable emphasizes the need for the integration of the
two. God speaks of a "wall of
fire:" the protective wall of Halakha and the burning flame of Aggada jointly
provide the framework for a Jewish life that combines tradition with novelty and
stability with enthusiasm.
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