Extra Tactics: Part 2

 

By: Jonathan Seidel

                                                        Additional Muscle

The indulgence of the prophetic move has legal and ethical concerns. Its reapplication must abide by modern ethics. This is an intuitive response not social conformity. Ethics is an important subject to religious observance. Religion is not simply to serve God but to build a divine framework to interact with others. We must accumulate the norms to rightfully connect with others. This is from the allegorical sections. They are not simply non-legal texts but empowering spiritual ideas. R’ Heschel describes it as bringing wonder bolstering faith1. It is uplifting and storied. It brings a visual persona to help embellish divine will into the soul. It is an irrational experience of awe. Perceiving the allegorical texts as eternally applicable. The sages poured in their wisdom to construct a philosophy. He imports the mystical tendencies as insular aspects. Allegory transcends rational bounds. It connects one to the infinite. It does not know boundaries. It is as clear as faith. It is inwardness to the soul. Re-inspiring the internality of the being. We cannot stick to emotion or thought. Our soulful yearning must be expressed with words and action. We need law to actualise our feelings. Yet we cannot become robots acting routinely. Our souls must link to our cognition. There is a sense of freedom to inner devotion. The biblical model of prayer was encountering, a spontaneous act to experience divinity2. A choice to opt into. A soulful spark to encourage the closeness between man and God. 

It provides a narrative of history, some factual and others fictional. Dr. Halbertal has displayed three functions of the narrative: historical foundation, procedural instructions, restrictive qualities. Each of these cases depends on the law. Whether it’s the law’s basis, the law’s tutorial, or the law’s limits3. Narrative in these instances provides the nature of the law. The law would be fruitless without it. Yet this borders the narrative to be an aid instead of standing alone. It is simply law’s walking stick (although the opposite can be perceived as well). The law is the implementation of the narrative. The law needs the narrative4. It could not survive without it. In the Talmud the law precedes the allegory but in the Bible the law succeeds the narrative. The former applies to a law code, the latter to a history book (the Bible is not a history textbook but it is a history of Israel’s development. It is properly termed an educational treatise). This is a countermeasure to legal centricity for the law to acknowledge its limitations but we must travel beyond. The law may humble itself but it does not change the perception of Judaism’s core. Dr. Halbertal’s account does give credence to the allegorical need to reconcile the further issue. Allegory is not simply to recognise legal limits but to provide an alternative to solve5. 

Prof. Wimpfheimer explained that the aggada interwoven with the halakha enabled the sages to expand beyond the law. Utilising a narrative (in this case the lovesick man Sanhedrin 75a) to breach strict letter law or “canonicity of the law”6. Allegory is a commentary to the principle. The Talmud permits scholars to leave home to study, then provides multiple accounts of sages who died because they neglected their families in their Torah preoccupation (Ketubot 61b-63a). The stories better comprehend the legal consequences. It is not to act legal until a certain threshold thereby switching to an allegorical track. It is realising from the onset to utilise stories and personal motives to overcome the obstacle. In a different vein, Prof. Rubenstein traces the synchronicity of the snake oven case which for many signifies human authority, has an additional underlying message (Bava Metzia 59b). Following the episode R’ Eliezer burns everything in sight after hearing of his ban from R’ Akiva. R’ Gamliel (assuming one of the sages opposed in the preceding event) has a confrontation with raging seas. Recognising it is from his behavior toward R’ Eliezer he asks for forgiveness. G-d intervenes on R’ Eliezer’s behalf as a protector. R’ Eliezer’s shame brings calamities. Prof. Rubenstein explains the tension between legal debate and human dignity7. The allegory teaches proper conduct of legal processes incorporating emotion. The law is the floor8; the allegory helps travel to the ceiling. 

Benjamin Apt argued the narratives provide a run-in with the law9. A personal experience of a legal encounter. The legal system is imperfect so narratives voice issues, exposing the flaws. They are subjective presentations of factualised events. The law is a rigid aspect that operates on its own accord. Law is like a beam to uphold the structure but the cracks go unnoticed by the masses. It is the victims who divulge these cracks and fight for reform. Similar to the previous examples, the narrative is the community’s woe to the legal enterprise. 

The Bible tells a story interweaving law as it becomes relevant to the people. It is historical events that introduce legal concepts. The Talmud introduces the law code with the rules followed by a description to add prowess. They are equal and require each other to succeed. The law needs its roots as well as its instructions. It needs inspiration and will to complete. The allegory is swift like the clouds in the sky. It needs concrete help to compel its directed focus. It can be seen as dry needing a boost of energy to impassion its actualisation10. R’ Soloveitchik clearly favoured the legal portion promoting philosophy out of law11. The law has its underpinnings and allegory assists in unveiling those hidden gems12. We can rationalise and philosophise law but the allegory gives us a starting point. It provides a foundation to build upon13. Equipping us with the necessary tools to romanticise our servitude. R’ Ginzberg makes an interesting remark that the sages fixated on law in the house of study opposed allegory, the ideas of the people14. Included are Prof. Guttmann’s concession to this truth15. Allegory was public inspiration. 

Sermons nowadays generally include legal requirements but focus more on piety influence than legal details. R’ Kook maintained that distinguishing the two was the Babylonian mode of thought while the Palestinian version was intertwining them16. R’ Kook envisioned two students, one more legal the other allegorical17. Each should be provided with the education best suited for them. He believed both were vital to wholly serve God18. I personally think no matter the inclination both types of students should learn the material. The path can be divergent but the result is the same. In an attempt to revive the spirit, allegory must be reviewed not as some annoying inapplicable section but as a vital participant in our service. 

Endnotes

1.lan Brill, “Aggadic Man: The Poetry and Rabbinic Thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel”, Edah 6:1 pg. 4.^↩

2. Max Kaduishin, Worship and Ethics: A Study in Rabbinic Judaism Northwestern University Press, 1964 pp. 105-120^↩

3. At the Threshold of Forgiveness: A Study of Law and Narrative in the Talmud.^↩

4. Robert Cover, “The Supreme Court, 1982 Term -- Foreword: Nomos and Narrative”, 97. Harvard Law Review. 4, 34. See: Samuel J, Levine, Halacha and Aggada: Translating Robert Cover’s Nomos and Narrative, Utah Law Review 465 Suzanne Last Stone, “In Pursuit of the Counter-text: The Turn to the Jewish Legal Model in Contemporary American Legal Theory” Harvard Law Review 106:4. Each supplies an important element to narrative and the allegorical sections.^↩

5. R’ Seigel argues that the aggada should control the halakha. The aggada is the ethical and theological aspects that alter the law. The case of the priest’s inability to marry a divorcee because of his Temple duties is no more and therefore should be permitted. Seymour Seigel, “Ethics and the Halakhah” Conservative Judaism and Jewish Law ed. Seymour Seigel (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 1977) pg. 127.^↩

6. Barry S. Wimpfheimer, Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmud Legal Stories (University of Pennsylvania Press; Illustrated edition, 2011) pg. 54.^↩

7. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (The Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition edition, 2003) pp. 40-48.^↩

8. Eugene Korn, “Legal Floors and Moral Ceilings: A Jewish Understanding Of Law and Ethics”, Edah 2:2 pg. 4.^↩

9. Benjamin L. Apt, “Aggadah, Legal Narrative, and the Law” Oregon Law Review 73:4 pp. 952, 957.^↩

10. Bialik expresses much harsher language to legality promoting allegory as the jovial aspect. Haim Nahman Bialik and Zali Gurevits', “Halachah and Aggadah” Revealment and Concealment: Five Essays. Jerusalem, Israel: Ibis Editions, 2000. Print.^↩

11. Joseph B Soloveitchik, The Halakhic Mind. An Essay on Jewish Tradition and Modern Thought (New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1986). R’ Reuven Ziegler notes R’ Soloveitchik purposely understated its essentialness. Rueven Ziegler, Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Urim Publications, 2017 pg. 253.^↩

12.  Chaim Saiman, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law. Princeton University Press, 2018 pp. 64-66.^↩

13. Avinoam Rosenak, “Teaching, Prophecy, and the Student Caught Between Them—On the Philosophy of Education of Rav Kook”, Edah 5:1 pg. 10. See: Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Worship of the Heart: Essays on Jewish Prayer ed. Shalom Carmy, OU Press, 2003. Soloveitchik does recognise allegory as secondary to legal philosophy yet does acknowledge it as “a point of departure” pg. 120. He is cautious but still believing in its validity and prowess.^↩

14. Louis Ginzberg, “Truncated Aggadot,” On Halakhah and Aggadah (Tel-Aviv, 1960).^↩

15. Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism. trans. David W. Silverman (New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, 1964), pg. 341.^↩

16. Avinoam Rosenak. Philosophy of Halakhah in the Teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook , doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998. Ephraim E. Urbach, The Halakhah: Its Sources and Development trans. Raphael Posner (Jerusalem: Massada, 1986).^↩

17. Supra note 13. Abraham Isaac Kook, Musar Avicha. Jerusalem, 1985. pg. 49.^↩

18. Abraham Isaac Kook, Orot HaKodesh. Jerusalem, 1985. pp. 6,12.^↩