- Conspiracy Theory
- …סנהדרין קז,א But the Maharsha looks at this differently, taking the aggadah seriously but not literally. בקש לעבוד ע"ז doesn't mean worshipping idols. We've seen David explicitly "עובד ע"ז" before: {:he} >ועתה ישמע נא אדני המלך את דברי עבדו; אם ה׳ הסיתך בי ירח מנחה ואם בני האדם ארורים הם…
- Crowning Glory
- …מלכות בית דוד. That's just weird. I would propose looking at this seriously but not literally. Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein says that David specifically wanted to "purify" this עבודה זרה: ...מה ששמעתי ממו״ח מרן הגרי״ש אלישיב שליט״א, ששנשאל וכי חסרו כתרים לעטר בהם את דוד מלך ישראל, ולמה הכתירוהו בכתר בני…
- Drowning Sorrow
- …המאררים; ובאו בה המים המאררים למרים׃ --במדבר פרק ה Taking this story seriously but not literally, David is not threatened by a physical flood. He is threatened by the consequences of his actions with Bat Sheva and Uriah, and those consequences will overwhelm what he sees as his purpose. He…
- Let Me Count the Ways ח
- …Glory. What does that even mean? I've talked before about taking Aggadah "seriously but not literally" and I'd like to think about what it means. This is entirely my own approach; take it with a grain of salt. You could look at midnight in two different ways; it is the…
- The Moses Psalms
- …נד:ד offers other options, תהילים צו or תהילים צז. Taking this aggadah seriously but not literally, the gemara is telling us that these were the songs of the restoration of the ארון to its rightful place, and I hypothesized that they were in fact the original תהילים that were sung…
- This Will Be on the Final
- …הגדלים אשר בארץ׃ שמואל ב פרק ז We need to take aggada seriously but not literally. I do not think that David was davening shacharis, looked in his Artscroll siddur: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלקֵינוּ וֵאלקֵי אֲבותֵינוּ, אֱלקֵי אַבְרָהָם, אֱלקֵי יִצְחָק, וֵאלקֵי יַעֲקב. הָאֵ־ל הַגָּדול הַגִּבּור וְהַנּורָא... עמידה, ברכת אבות Then…
- פרשת ויגש תשפ״ד
- …with their parting, 22 years ago. But we need to take aggadah seriously but not literally. When Yosef and Yaakov parted, Yaakov taught him the מצווה of לוויה, accompanying the other: {:he} >יג ויאמר ישראל אל יוסף הלוא אחיך רעים בשכם לכה ואשלחך אליהם; ויאמר לו הנני׃ יד ויאמר לו…
- פרשת ויקרא תשע״ז
- …Torah. It's only aggadic, which means that we have to take it seriously but not literally. יד וַאֲנִי תְפִלָּתִי לְךָ ה׳ עֵת רָצוֹן אֱ־לֹהִים בְּרָב חַסְדֶּךָ;עֲנֵנִי בֶּאֱמֶת יִשְׁעֶךָ׃ ...לא אֲהַלְלָה שֵׁם אֱ־לֹהִים בְּשִׁיר; וַאֲגַדְּלֶנּוּ בְתוֹדָה׃ לב וְתִיטַב לַה׳ מִשּׁוֹר פָּר; מַקְרִן מַפְרִיס׃ תהילים פרק סט ת״ר יום שנברא בו אדם…
- פרשת וישלח תשפ״ב
- …of the Meshach Chochmah, as understood by Rav Yehudah Copperman, taking it seriously but not literally. But before we look at the Meshech Chochmah, we need to understand what Yaakov is doing. He's just come back from Charan, confronted Esav and all his old demons, on the east side of…
- פרשת כי תשא תשפ״ד
- …רבי זבינא שנולדו בה סימני נערות. --שמות רבה א:יט Taking all this seriously but not literally, I want to focus on the fact that the midrashic emphasis is on Betzalel's ancestry being little children or rejuvenated adults. ---- And that connects to the main story of this week's parsha: חטא…
- פרשת לך לך תש״פ
- …משנה תורה, הלכות עבודה זרה א:ג Note that Ramban takes the midrash "seriously but not literally", and offers a reason why it's not in the text, and that the Rambam emphasizes Avraham as a philosopher, who questions everything in order to arrive at the truth. Rav Hutner connects this idea,…
- פרשת מקץ תשע״ז
- …been banned, kicked out, sold into slavery. I'm willing to take this seriously but not literally. And I don't know what to do with it. Rav Bin Nun turns the question on its head: Why doesn't Jacob contact Joseph? יוסף לא ידע בשחיטת השעיר וברמאות האחים עם אביהם כי נטרף…
- פרשת נח תשפ״ד
- …important Ramban that teaches us about the nature of aggadah, taking it seriously but not literally: {:he} >על פני תרח אביו בארץ מולדתו: כתב רש"י כדרך דברי רבותינו: תרח קבל על אברם בנו לפני נמרוד על שבירת צלמיו והשליכהו לכבשן...וזהו ”אור כשדים“...והענין שקבלו רבותינו בזה הוא האמת ואני מבאר אותו...והענין…
- פרשת קרח תשע״ז
- …ברכות to be Aggadic, not Halachic and thus is to be taken "seriously but not literally", and the underlying truth is that a הבטחה על טובה can be lost due to sin: לשיטתינו שכתבנו דאין חטא גורם לבטל הבטחה מפי הקדוש ברוך הוא אלא עד אחר שיתמעטו הזכיות ע״י החסדים.…
- פרשת שלך לך תשפ״ב
- …values and ideas of תורה שבבעל פה. אגדות need to be taken seriously but not literally. So רבי יהודה בן בתירא says, "You're doing aggadah wrong. You are playing Rabbi Fohrman, looking for textual similarities, but there has to be something deeper." There's another gemara that makes criticizes Rabbi Akiva…
- פרשת שמות תש״פ
- …סוטה יב,ב The Maharal is one of the pioneers of reading midrashim "seriously but not literally"; or rather, he argues that the "literal" reading of a midrash is in a spiritual sense: והוקשה להם עוד דלמה הוצרך למכתב ”ונערותיה הולכות על יד היאור“, דמאי נפקא מיניה בזה? לכך אמרו שהיו…
- פרשת שמות תשפ״ב
- …the lesson. As Rabbi Shulman puts it, we have to take aggadah "seriously but not literally". ---- The one who really defined how we (traditional Jews in a modern world) approach aggadah was the Maharal (much of this comes from Chaim Eisen, [_Maharal’s Be’er ha-Golah and His Revolution in Aggadic…
- פרשת תולדות תשע״ז
- …With that in mind, I would like to look at that vort seriously but not literally. So did the Avot actually make ברכות on their food? I would argue that they certainly did. The amud-a-week program has recently been looking at the ברכות, and the Gemara discusses why we say…